Campaigners pledge to keep up momentum for city light rail

Galway City Tribune – Campaigners for a light rail system in Galway city may have received a setback to their ambitions last week, but they are certainly are not going down without a fight.

They will not relax their campaign until the Minister for Transport carries out an independent survey on the proposal.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) described the Gluas proposal for Galway as being a highly inefficient option to the city’s traffic problems and “an inappropriate solution” to the traffic situation in the city.

Instead, it was suggested at an Oireachtas Committee on Transport meeting in Dublin that the original options of an outer ring road should be progressed and that, in the meantime, efforts should be made to improve public transport.

However, those behind the Gluas project in Galway are less than happy that their option has been dismissed so handily and that NTA chief Anne Graham had “missed the point completely”.

Former city councillor Brendan Holland, who is Gluas Project Chairman, told the Galway City Tribune that their proposal centred around a much lighter rail system compared to the Luas in Dublin which would be considerably less expensive to install.

He believes that both the light rail in Galway city and the outer ring road would both work in tandem with each other but also serve two completely different functions.

Ms Graham referred to a study which suggested that a projected volume of 1,100 passenger journeys per hour would need to be facilitated by such a service – however, that would be only one-third of the capacity of a light rail system. “It would be a highly inefficient solution,” Ms Graham added.

But Brendan Holland disagrees. “Ms Graham stated that a requirement of 1,100 passengers per hour was needed to facilitate such a service but that figure is totally dependent on what the system cost.

“Unlike the heavy, larger Dublin Luas, the Gluas project is based on modern technology of a much lighter system using modern shallow non-penetrating rail which is much less expensive to install.

“Thus, because the trams are smaller and lighter, the same passenger numbers are not required, but still give the benefits of the Dublin Luas, to make the system viable.”
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