Carlow bus service review will begin at end of this year
Carlow town bus service has been a remarkable success story but councillors believe it needs some adjustments
THE long-awaited National Transport Authority (NTA) review of the Carlow Town Bus Service will begin at the end of this year and is expected to be completed by the end of January or early February.
The bus service was launched in July 2023 when the two routes, CW1 and CW2, came into use. At the time, the NTA told councillors that the routes would be in place for a year and then a review would take place to see how the routes were working. However, since then, the review has been repeatedly delayed.
At the last meeting of Carlow town municipal district, director of services Pádraig O’Gorman announced that the review will start later this year and that an initial meeting had already been held.
Mr O’Gorman also told the meeting that an average of 400,000 passengers use the bus service annually and that it had received good customer feedback. The council has already fed in a number of high-level observations to the review â possible extensions of the two routes, ensuring that the bus route goes past the train station, highlighted unserved areas and suggesting a third bus route.
A public consultation will launch this month. Before that, there will be an online session for council members given by the NTA, where they can give input, though they will also have the opportunity to make their own submissions when the public consultation opens.
The review will set out short, medium and long-term objectives, but implementing them depends on whether the council can get additional government funding.
Cathaoirleach Ken Murnane said that the bus routes need to better serve Graiguecullen as though 5,000 people live there but the bus barely serves that area.
Cllr Fintan Phelan said that the introduction of the bus routes had been hugely successful but a third bus route is needed. He mentioned that the route misses Castle Oaks estate, the Sue Ryder home and the Four Lakes shopping centre. He said that it would be easy to extend the bus route so it covers these locations. He also flagged the new community centre on the Tullow Road and agreed with the cathaoirleach that Graiguecullen needed to be better served.
Cllr Cassin then suggested that the service be extended to include areas like Palatine. He said that there should be more frequent services and bus shelters, which many of his constituents had asked for.
Cllr Andrea Dalton expressed her disappointment that it had taken the NTA three years to begin their review. She said that the NTA had overpromised when they said that they could do a review within a year and that small improvements could have been made earlier. She called for a park and ride link to junction 5 services on the M9 motorway, a bus shelter at Tyndall College and an extension of one of the routes to the Woodford Dolmen Hotel. She also suggested that the proposed third bus route serve Graiguecullen and stressed the need for additional funding for the bus routes.
Cllr Adrienne Wallace said that she was “less than impressed” with the NTA’s handling of the review and the council had had to be persistent in getting them to come back. She called for the route to include the Tullow Road area and asked whether the review would cover connection beyond the town, arguing that the service must encourage people out of cars.
In response to these suggestions and comments, Mr O’Gorman said the review will highlight extension areas, but, like with all public transport, it is heavily subsidised and, nationally, reviews of existing town services indicated an additional €30m is needed with no indication that that is forthcoming from government.
As it is a town service, he said that the bus service should not extend far beyond the town until it is well serviced. This first review will look at tweaks that can be made to the service and, possibly, adding a third service with wider extensions of the routes to places like Tullow, perhaps, arriving in the longer term.
