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Twenty-one years later, the National Transport Authority (NTA) lodged a planning application last month for a P&R facility at Cappagh Road on the city’s western edge.

You’d think that progress would excite Galway commuters who waste hours stuck in traffic every year.

Instead, there is scepticism and opposition to the P&R proposal that are before city planners because many people don’t believe it will work.

The NTA said the project “aims to improve public transport access, reduce traffic congestion and enhance walking and cycling connectivity for the inhabitants of west Galway”.

Who could be against that? On the face of it, nobody. But the devil is in the detail and there are a number of red flags in this plan. The biggest difficulty with this P&R proposal is the absence of bus lanes on the Western Distributor Road.

It’s all very well providing sheltered bus stops at a new car park on Cappagh Road but without quality bus corridors that give buses priority over private transport, motorists will not be enticed out of their cars.

The proposal will include just 176 car-parking spaces and four bus bays with covered shelters. The planning application said the facility aims to “intercept private car traffic that originates in catchment areas further west of this location”.

It mentioned Indreabhán, An Spidéal, Na Forbacha and Bearna as examples. But who in their right mind in the wider Conamara region would drive along the R336, turn left at Cappagh Road, park at a new car park and wait for a bus that will be stuck in the same traffic?

Without bus lanes, there will be no incentive for a modal shift from car to bus. The NTA are kidding themselves if they think otherwise. And without bus corridors, this P&R is just a glorified car park. A very costly one.

At a recent Labour Party public meeting on traffic congestion, it was stated that the cost of this project will be €12 million. That amounts to €68,000 per car space! Labour sources have since clarified that half of that figure is for the P&R, with the other €6m for bike lanes and footpaths to the car park.

This begs the question, is this a Park and Stride or Park and Ride (bicycle, not bus)? This isn’t a simple development, turning a field into a car park. It requires significant changes.

The NTA plans to relocate the existing roundabout at Cappagh Road/Western Distributor Road to allow access to the proposed new P&R. They plan to realign a “short section” of the Tonabrocky stream.

They plan new pedestrian links to pitches at Knocknacarra Community Centre. The NTA’s own Park and Ride Strategy states that P&R should not function as “destination parking”.

Without bus lanes and concrete modelling data on how many private cars the proposed P&R will take off the road, the fear is that this project will develop into a spillover car park for Cappagh Park and not an effective sustainable transport tool.

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The three men vying to represent Sinn Féin in the Galway West bye-election were all smiles on Shop Street last Saturday.

Former City Councillor Mark Lohan and Conamara-based Kevin O’Hara were involved in a public spat on Facebook in recent weeks. But that duo – along with parliamentary assistant Eoghan Finn – put on a united front while distributing leaflets about the price of fuel to the public last weekend.

The trio stood shoulder to shoulder, marching under a United Ireland banner at Galway’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade on Tuesday.

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As American President Donald Trump was busy mis-gendering his Irish counterpart, during the St Patrick’s Day meeting with An Taoiseach Michéal Martin in the White House on March 17, a Catherine Connolly lookalike stole the show at Galway City’s parade.

A member of Shantalla Residents Association’s group in the parade looked the spit of Catherine Connolly as they rode a bicycle through the streets of Galway while wearing a Cat Connolly face mask and carrying Tom Nally’s Shantalla book in the bike’s basket.

The actual President and her husband, Brian, were in Dublin for the country’s largest St Patrick’s Day parade, their first as First Couple.

Meanwhile, conservative columnists in national newspapers were losing their s**t over Catherine Connolly’s St Patrick’s Day address (in which she quite rightly said “the normalisation of war can never be accepted”), and St Patrick’s Day electronic greeting card (in which she quoted the 1945 United Nations Charter, which vowed to save “succeeding generations from the scourge of war”, and Article 29 of the Irish Constitution which outlines Ireland’s commitment to peace and “pacific settlement to international disputes”).

Both are fairly uncontroversial but Cat managed to annoy all the right people.

© Connacht Tribune