Connecting Ireland
 

The NTA's Connecting Ireland proposals and the attendant public consultation went live yesterday.

I notice that rail services are mapped and mentioned but that "no significant changes are planned" which conflicts with the intent/proposals in Strategy 2027; perhaps the rail strategy could have been integrated with Connecting Ireland. It is somewhat concerning that Connecting Ireland mentions enhancing bus services on corridors such as Limerick to Waterford and Wexford to Rosslare where rail services already exist and where the existing bus services are already quite good as this will likely abstract custom from the railway. I believe these concerns are well-founded.

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-...-Table-WEB.pdf

For instance it is proposed to enhance the Limerick - Clonmel - Waterford corridor bus service to hourly as stated on page 2 of the PDF linked above.

We are being driven distracted by endless climate crisis stuff on the media. Enhancing a bus service where there is an underutliised rail link between Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir, Clonmel, Cahir and Limerick seems to fly in the face of all of this.

I keep seeing completely empty intercity Bus Eireann services around the country, so seems crazy to be adding more until they can fil or better utilise the ones that are already there. Audits should be done on passenger numbers by route.

Some private sector innovation needs to be brought into fare structures to make it attractive to travel on services provided by Bus Eireann.

Interestingly there is the following paragraph about rail on p.16 of the report:

PS: the Connecting Ireland public consultation closes on Friday 10th December.