New bus routes proposed for Westmeath

Community cars, “hackneys” and phone apps are all set to be part of the process of weaning rural Ireland away from its reliance on cars – and ahead of that, rural bus services are to be significantly upped, the National Transport Authority (NTA) revealed last week.

For Westmeath, it is to mean a host of new connections to other counties and enhanced services on existing corridors, including a new hourly service from Athlone to Mullingar and on to Trim, Navan and Drogheda; a two-hourly service from Mullingar to Dundalk via Delvin Kells and Ardee and a new route running three times a day between Edgeworthstown, and Mullingar and taking in Legan, Ballynacargy and Ballinalack

Other new routes proposed are a link from Athlone to Mullingar taking in Ballymore and Castletown Geoghegan; a route from Mullingar to Portlaoise taking in Kinnegad, Edenderry, Portarlington and Mountmellick; a route from Athlone to Thurles.

Also proposed is increased frequency on most other routes already in existence.

The measures are all part of the authority’s €57m five-year “Connecting Ireland” plan, and alongside the launch of the plan, the NTA also announced the start of the public consultation process on the plan’s proposals

The headline measure in the plan, developed with the aim of increasing public transport connectivity, particularly for people living outside our major cities and towns is an overall increase of approximately 25% in rural bus services. This is intended to bring about a situation where 70 per cent of the population will have access to a public transport service that provides at least three return trips daily to their nearby town. (This compares to the current figure of 53%.)

The authority has also announced that over 100 rural villages will benefit from frequent public transport service (at least three return trips daily) for the first time; and that there will be over 60 new connections to regional cities from surrounding areas.

What are being described as “Demand Responsive and other innovative transport services” are being proposed to improve mobility options for those in remote areas.

Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said at the launch that the 25 per cent increase in rural bus services was “only the start”: “Within that there will be a 200% increase in the level of local link services,” he said explaining that all these routes would in turn connect with other transport services.

“This is going to be important in terms of our ‘smarter towns’ and building up a more balanced regional development, it is really important post-COVID in allowing people to work remotely.”

Anne Graham, CEO of the NTA, describing it as a rural mobility plan, said that through Connecting Ireland the NTA wanted to offer a viable alternative to the car in rural Ireland.

“The service planning team in the NTA carried out a very substantive analysis of connectivity between settlements across the country. And they looked at the network connections between villages and their nearby towns. And they actually found that two in five villages are not connected to their nearby bigger town,” she stated.

Ms Graham said the intention is to finalise the implementation plan by the second quarter of next year and to start implementation in the quarter after that.

Responding to journalists’ questions on what was meant by “Demand Responsive and other innovative transport services” Ms Graham said that there is already demand-response transport provided through the Local Link network: “But we may need to enhance that level of provision. We also support local area hackneys - subsidised - and we have a pilot local area hackney scheme at the moment and we also have subsidised community car schemes operating on a pilot basis around the country as well.”

*To view the full set of proposals and to make submissions see :”Connecting Ireland” on nationaltransport.ie