Letters

Public transport and rural Ireland

Long day’s journey into night

Fri Aug 18 2023 - 00:10

Sir, – After reading Anna Heussaff’s article on public transport routes (“I’m holidaying by public transport in Ireland this summer. Here’s what I’ve learned”, Opinion, August 16th), I downloaded the Transport for Ireland (TFI) app to see how I’d get on, on a route I travel quite regularly, from Bagenalstown in Carlow, to a location in rural Wexford which normally takes about an hour by car.

To where I actually wanted to go, TFI offered no option, so I selected either of two villages within a few kilometres of my destination.

For one village, Ballaghkeen, TFI again offered no option at all. For the other, Blackwater, the journey would take five hours and nine minutes and I still needed to get the final four kilometres.

So, five hours and nine minutes. Walk to train station hauling luggage, train to Waterford city, an eight-minute walk hauling luggage to bus station, bus to New Ross, wait seven minutes for change of bus to Wexford town, wait over two hours (133 minutes) for bus to Blackwater and then somehow, unspecified, get the final few kilometres to my actual destination. And that’s if everything goes according to the schedule.

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Or load car with luggage, drive one hour and arrive.

Public transport has its role and can work well in urban areas where population density is high enough for regular and frequent routes but it can never satisfy the requirements of those outside larger towns, either in getting to a destination or getting there in a reasonable time-frame.

Transport policymakers and politicians need to be very mindful of this when devising future transport policy. The private car (electric in the future) will always have a vital role to play in transport in Ireland.

I welcome the increase in public transport provision, and there is no denying the damage the fossil-fuelled car is doing to the environment and people’s lungs, but for purely practical reasons, I, and many others, will have to stick with our cars for a while yet. – Yours, etc,

DAVID DORAN,

Bagenalstown,

Co Carlow.

A chara, – Anna Heussaff makes a very important point about the need for more request stops on rural bus routes, highlighting one location where she “could avail of the bus only because drivers agreed informally that they could pull in safely”.

It does appear that guidelines appropriate for urban areas and busy commuter routes are now being applied inflexibly to rural bus routes such as those operated by TFI Local Link contractors.

For example, on Local Link 356 Clonmel/Dungarvan there is no stop between Dungarvan and Touraneena, a distance of approximately 18km, and requests for stops at Kilmanahan and The Halfway have been declined due to “safety concerns”. These locations and several others on this route were served for many years by CIÉ/Bus Éireann services which stopped on request at any point on the route.

Since the inception of rural bus services in the 1920s it was the custom and practice to stop on request where it was safe to do so.

Any problems in this regard were usually resolved by “on the ground” meetings between the local bus inspector, a Garda sergeant and community representatives such as Muintir na Tíre, etc.

The lesson for today’s transport planners is that Google Maps and computerised scheduling systems need to be supplemented by local knowledge and common sense. – Is mise,

CYRIL McINTYRE,

Celbridge,

Co Kildare.