An Taisce's Galway branch has called for provision of a tram service and quality bus corridors to alleviate the city's mounting traffic problems.
A Luas-type transport system or guided busways, combined with bus corridors, could have a radical impact, according to the organisation.
It believes this represents a realistic alternative to the proposed outer city bypass motorway. The outer bypass is provided for in the city's new draft development plan, which went on display yesterday and is open to public comment for the next four weeks.
Provision of bus routes, rather than specific quality bus corridors, is supported in general terms in the draft plan, but Mr Derrick Hambleton, chair of An Taisce's Galway branch, has criticised the lack of emphasis on other forms of public transport.
"We believe this city can't continue to grow as it is with total dependence on car transport," he said yesterday.
The Mayor of Galway, Cllr Catherine Connolly (Lab), supports An Taisce's call, while also defending many parts of the plan.
Any analysis of public transport, whether tram or light rail or bus, would be invaluable, she said. "Galway had a tram running across the city to Salthill in the 1950s, and we should never have got rid of it."
A tram service could run from Barna and Knocknacarra in the west, across the Corrib to Ballybane, Doughuisce and the "new town" of Ardaun in the east, terminating in Oranmore, An Taisce says.
Such a service could be built for "half" the estimated €250 million cost of the outer city bypass and be ready in "half the time", Mr Hambleton believes.
"While planners will say we don't yet have the residential density, or the passenger numbers to justify the level of investment required, we are quite sure that residential and commercial high density developments would follow along the route," he said.
Recent rezonings by Galway councillors as part of the city plan revision will result in the spread of more socially damaging urban sprawl, while "making millionaires" out of some landowners, according to An Taisce.
The National Roads Authority has not as yet published an environmental impact statement on the proposed outer city bypass, but An Taisce believes it is unsustainable in terms of the loss of natural heritage and the impact of another bridge across the Corrib near Menlo Castle.
It says there is "some justification" for the argument being put forward by some opponents of the project that it is aimed primarily at opening up more development land, rather than alleviating traffic.
