Galway Bay fm newsroom:
The proposed Galway City Ring Road is over engineered and will have too much of a human impact.
That’ s according to former city engineer Tom Kilgarriff who made submission against the proposed developed on the 8th day of the oral hearing this morning.
Former Galway city engineer Tom Kilgarriff, assisted by consultant Engineer Gabor Molinar argued against the proposed development on a number of legal and design issues.
Mr Kilgarriff said he is in favour of a ring road development but said this one is in the wrong place, it’s over engineered and it will effectively destroy a community of homes.
Mr Molinar presented an alternative route that would see the demolition of just one home - compared to the 54 on the applicant’s route.
This route is longer than the preferred route, but Mr Molinar argued that’s not simply a matter of economics and that the human impact must be considered.
He went on to say that the construction of a three lane motorway along sections of the preferred route unnecessary.
He described this as an example of over engineering and made reference to the Athlone bypass as an example of a dual carriage way that is capable of carrying 56 thousand car journeys a day.
Mr Kilcarriff raised a number of legal concerns regarding the development.
He questioned whether considering the proposed ring road and the Galway Transport Strategy separately queries whether the GCRR will free up space in the city.
The development is being proposed under article 63 which states that no European sites will be destroyed.
Mr Kilgarriff argued that it should be taken under article 64 which says the development will destroy a European site but that there’s no choice but to do so.
The hearing will continue this afternoon.
