Galway would have to follow the example of London and introduce a congestion charge to discourage commuters from bringing their cars into town.
That was the idea proposed by Galway City Fine Gael Councillor Frank Fahy, who knows the city gridlock issues at first hand through his work as a taxi driver.
A proposal to locate a park and ride site at Coolough Road, near the Briarhill Junction, would do nothing to alleviate traffic congestion as it was too near the city, he argued.
This was one of the measures discussed at this week’s Galway City Council meeting which focused on traffic congestion in Parkmore.
“We need to go out to the county with a site, preventing them coming in with their cars. We’re going to have to follow the example of London and bring in a congestion charge. Nine out of ten cars have one passenger – one bus can take 50 cars off the road.”
City councillors backed a motion calling on the government to implement a free school transport system for Galway.
Independent Galway City Councillor Collette Connolly proposed the measure as a way of alleviating the chronic congestion in the city.
Fine Gael Councillor Padraig Conneely abstained from the vote, labelling it as populist nonsense.
Cllr Connolly also proposed a motion for Galway City Council to examine light rail as an option for the city, as opposed to a frequent bus service, which was the recommendation in the Galway City Transportation Strategy.
City Chief Executive Brendan McGrath said that strategy had carried out a huge amount of modelling on the traffic and had concluded that a light rail system would not be viable given Galway City’s population.
This was due to the fact that half of the working population lived in the county and the other half would not pay enough only travelling at peak times to justify the cost of a ‘Gluas’.
Rapid bus transport, linked to a park and ride system, with real time information and adequate bus shelters to protect the travelling public from the 243 days of rain in Galway a year was the solution which best suited this city, he said.
For the rest of this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here, or download the app for Android or iPhone.
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