Sligo's Public Transport

starbelgrade

We all know how bad the public transport sytem is in Sligo, but do you know how much we are paying for it? CIE, which owns Iarnrod Eireann, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus, recorded a spectacular operating deficit of €406 million in 2007, which we the taxpayers subsidised.

Now I don't know about you, but I haven't used public transport since I moved to Sligo a few years ago, quite simply because I don't have the luxury of having the choice.. OK - I COULD take the train when travelling to Dublin, but why should I - It's cheaper AND quicker to drive (plus I can smoke in the car!). On occasion, I've flown there & back and tough it's a bit more expensive, it cuts the journey by over half.

There's a Bus Eireann service where I live (Coolaney) which is extremely regular.. it comes into the village once a day and I don't think that includes weekends - I tried getting information from the station in Sligo, but they hedn't a clue .. I was told I'd have to get the Galway bus then change-over to the Limerick bus.. EH????!!! No wonder they're haemorraging losses.

So, all this money is poured out of our pockets & into inneficient, loss making companies & what does Sligo get out of it? Feck all, as usual, meanwhile we're subsidising the likes of Dublin Bus.

Typical. It makes you wonder what on earth the local councellors get up to of a week day.

bobcar61

And it's only going to get worse for us Sligo folk.I never take the bus either or the train for that matter because as you say it is cheaper to drive and its quicker.
And it's only going to get worse for us Sligo folk.
CIE have announced that they are going to reduce their fleet of buses at depots around the country and Sligo is amongst them.Fewer routes available and less frequency will be the outcome.


However there must be some people taking the train,1.34 million people used the Dublin-Sligo train service last year making it the 3rd busiest in the country.

Big_Mac

Pffft, Sligo's what now?

I don't believe this

Not so long ago there was ranting and raving about having more services in sligo and blah blah blah yada yada yada. Now their talking about reducing them? HA!

Any wonder the world considers us backward?

elshambo

starbelgrade wrote: »

We all know how bad the public transport sytem is in Sligo,

Do we?
I think its very good for a small town in the west of Ireland, cluttered with people who dream of being car owners from the age of about 10
And a poorly laid out road network

starbelgrade wrote: »

but do you know how much we are paying for it? CIE, which owns Iarnrod Eireann, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus, recorded a spectacular operating deficit of €406 million in 2007, which we the taxpayers subsidised.

Loss making because they are paying for loss making routes like:

starbelgrade wrote: »

There's a Bus Eireann service where I live (Coolaney) which is extremely regular.. it comes into the village once a day and I don't think that includes weekends

Exactly how many loss making runs do you want them making into every village in the country?
3 a day? 4?
or should they run regular loss making routes to the village you live in:eek:

starbelgrade wrote: »

Now I don't know about you, but I haven't used public transport since I moved to Sligo a few years ago, quite simply because I don't have the luxury of having the choice.. OK - I COULD take the train when travelling to Dublin, but why should I - It's cheaper AND quicker to drive (plus I can smoke in the car!). On occasion,

You had the choice and you chose to live in an area with no regular bus service
So how much do you think it would lose if the service was cheaper than 1/3 of a tank of gas?

btw a return ticket, to dublin can apparently be bought for the bus for about 10 euro online (as with all special rates, im sure there are some catches)

This is one of the reasons this country is in the toilet!
I want the moon on a stick!
But i dont want to carry it because its heavy and
I want to someone else to pay for a stick strong enough to carry the moon!

starbelgrade wrote: »

plus I can smoke in the car!

Id say thats the nub there!
Welcome to progress!

ooh and i see what you did there:

starbelgrade wrote: »

spectacular operating deficit

Melord, leading the withness!;)



ps. I dont work for Bus/Rail/Goverment and have no interest in doing so!

juicyjellybabe

I find the Imp bus service that goes around town and the suburbs very handy, although I do wonder why there is no service out to the Finisklin industrial park?

starbelgrade

elshambo wrote: »

Do we?
I think its very good for a small town in the west of Ireland, cluttered with people who dream of being car owners from the age of about 10
And a poorly laid out road network



Loss making because they are paying for loss making routes like:



Exactly how many loss making runs do you want them making into every village in the country?
3 a day? 4?
or should they run regular loss making routes to the village you live in:eek:


You had the choice and you chose to live in an area with no regular bus service
So how much do you think it would lose if the service was cheaper than 1/3 of a tank of gas?

btw a return ticket, to dublin can apparently be bought for the bus for about 10 euro online (as with all special rates, im sure there are some catches)

This is one of the reasons this country is in the toilet!
I want the moon on a stick!
But i dont want to carry it because its heavy and
I want to someone else to pay for a stick strong enough to carry the moon!



Id say thats the nub there!
Welcome to progress!

ooh and i see what you did there:

Melord, leading the withness!;)



ps. I dont work for Bus/Rail/Goverment and have no interest in doing so!

I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm just wondering why the %*&% we are all forking out for services we didn't ask for / doesn't suit us / we never use etc etc... I mean, come one - Aer Arann can run a PROFITABLE service for quite often LESS than it it costs to run a crappy train service that's always overpriced & over-subscribed - yet the the taxpayer has to subsidise it? EH?!?!

Some buses are obviously well used & well liked by what I've rad, but as for the rest... Bill Cull-it, I say. :eek:

jimmmy

starbelgrade wrote: »

We all know how bad the public transport sytem is in Sligo, but do you know how much we are paying for it?

Unfortunately Sligo has being very badly planned during the tiger era...for whatever reason. The kindest one can say is incompetency. It is laid out to be very difficult to get around. If one gets the train or bus in to Sligo, how the hell could you expect a public transport company to organise efficient transport - in a town of 19,000 people - to "retail" parks miles away to places like Carraroe, Duncans island, Cleveragh ? In other towns like Letterkenny the retail park is within easy walking distance of the town centre. Why give tax incentives for people to live in tax designated towns like Coolaney if they have to commute to Sligo ?

elshambo

starbelgrade wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you - I'm just wondering why the %*&% we are all forking out for services we didn't ask for / doesn't suit us / we never use etc etc... I mean, come one - Aer Arann can run a PROFITABLE service for quite often LESS than it it costs to run a crappy train service that's always overpriced & over-subscribed - yet the the taxpayer has to subsidise it? EH?!?!

Some buses are obviously well used & well liked by what I've rad, but as for the rest... Bill Cull-it, I say. :eek:

So your saying public services should be run like private companies?

Stop ALL bus routes that dont make profit!?
Stop ALL train services that dont make profit!?

where does it end?

Close the hospitals?
:eek:Close the prisons?:eek:

the quick answer:

Non profitable public services such as certain bus/train routes add value to the economy as the money these people spend while not seen by the bus/train companies is brought into the ecomony

Without these routes, people would either stay in their homes or buy a japanese/german car to get around and more money would leave the ecomony:eek:

magnumlady

I think the daily bus you see in Coolaney is the school bus.

As far as I know the only Bus Eireann bus service is on a Friday. It leaves Coolaney at 11am and is back at 3pm.
http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1202387942-479.pdf

There is the Tubber access bus that goes a couple of times a week.

darealtulip

the thing is that public transport is expensive here that it's cheaper to go by car. We wanted to go to dublin by train so our boy could be on a train and we didnt have to be in traffic and park. this would cost us 80 euro's!

when coming from dublin the last train (or bus) goes around 8. the planes out of Holland always arrives at 7 so they wont make it. An other 6 hour journey in the car.

Mrs.T

darealtulip wrote: »

the thing is that public transport is expensive here that it's cheaper to go by car. We wanted to go to dublin by train so our boy could be on a train and we didnt have to be in traffic and park. this would cost us 80 euro's!

when coming from dublin the last train (or bus) goes around 8. the planes out of Holland always arrives at 7 so they wont make it. An other 6 hour journey in the car.

Sorry darling, last train/ bus is 7pm.

There is no catch with the €10 return unless you count the time limit on the ticket ie runs out on 31st January, and you need a credit card to book.

elshambo

darealtulip wrote: »

the thing is that public transport is expensive here that it's cheaper to go by car. We wanted to go to dublin by train so our boy could be on a train and we didnt have to be in traffic and park. this would cost us 80 euro's!

when coming from dublin the last train (or bus) goes around 8. the planes out of Holland always arrives at 7 so they wont make it. An other 6 hour journey in the car.

List the reasons you moved from the Netherlands to the west of Ireland (to yourself)

Id imagine that amongst thoses reasons would be

Density of population
Countryside

the Netherlands has a fantastic transport system, but it should do having multiple large urban areas, flat landscapes to build/travel across and a population who are not set on house/car ownership from an early age (although i hear the house buying thing is changing over there )

In a nation like that, an efficent profitable public transport system would be a lot easier to accomadate than in a country which has one of the (if not thee lowest) population density in europe, where people dream of house/car ownership ,living in little villages in out of the way places, with terrible weather and a varying countryside.
In a country like that id imagine a CHEAP PROFITABLE EVERY ROUTE POSSIBLE covered service is nigh on impossible.

Ive had many a trip ruined by the no late trains/buses to Sligo, but if they ran them, certain people would complain that they were not profitable routes:rolleyes::eek:
(see how many people get off the last bus on any given night!)

For every up side of living in a place there has to be a down, there is a reason that there are 125 million people on the planet who claim to be Irish and only about 5 million of those who are actually willing to live there!

BASICALLY; Welcome to rural living!:)

& yes the service is :pac:rap, & yes it is badly run, and yes the very people who are the cause of this WILL be re-elected in the next election when they do their usual buy the vote cut in taxes vote grubbing budget, & yes the people who vote for them will a couple of weeks later go back to slagging them off and saying NEVER AGAIN:o

THe biggest waste of money in this country that has no hidden value (see post above) is the fact that we have more TD's and MINISTERS!!!! than any other country in europe per head of pop and the amount they get paid when compared to other countries!

as for these figures:

However there must be some people taking the train,1.34 million people used the Dublin-Sligo train service last year making it the 3rd busiest in the country.

How many of them are daily commuters who go no further than Mullingar/Maynooth?


***

darealtulip wrote: »

the thing is that public transport is expensive here that it's cheaper to go by car.

Is it?
Not for everyone id imagine!?

Cost of car+tax+repairs+petrol+parking < Cost of public transport tickets?

Suppose it depends on where you live and how much travelling you do!?
***

magnumlady

Mrs.T wrote: »

Sorry darling, last train/ bus is 7pm.

There is no catch with the €10 return unless you count the time limit on the ticket ie runs out on 31st January, and you need a credit card to book.

What 10 euro return?

darealtulip

elshambo wrote: »

List the reasons you moved from the Netherlands to the west of Ireland (to yourself)

Id imagine that amongst thoses reasons would be

Density of population
Countryside

the Netherlands has a fantastic transport system, but it should do having multiple large urban areas, flat landscapes to build/travel across and a population who are not set on house/car ownership from an early age (although i hear the house buying thing is changing over there )

In a nation like that, an efficent profitable public transport system would be a lot easier to accomadate than in a country which has one of the (if not thee lowest) population density in europe, where people dream of house/car ownership ,living in little villages in out of the way places, with terrible weather and a varying countryside.
In a country like that id imagine a CHEAP PROFITABLE EVERY ROUTE POSSIBLE covered service is nigh on impossible.

Ive had many a trip ruined by the no late trains/buses to Sligo, but if they ran them, certain people would complain that they were not profitable routes:rolleyes::eek:
(see how many people get off the last bus on any given night!)

For every up side of living in a place there has to be a down, there is a reason that there are 125 million people on the planet who claim to be Irish and only about 5 million of those who are actually willing to live there!

BASICALLY; Welcome to rural living!:)

& yes the service is :pac:rap, & yes it is badly run, and yes the very people who are the cause of this WILL be re-elected in the next election when they do their usual buy the vote cut in taxes vote grubbing budget, & yes the people who vote for them will a couple of weeks later go back to slagging them off and saying NEVER AGAIN:o

THe biggest waste of money in this country that has no hidden value (see post above) is the fact that we have more TD's and MINISTERS!!!! than any other country in europe per head of pop and the amount they get paid when compared to other countries!

as for these figures:

How many of them are daily commuters who go no further than Mullingar/Maynooth?


***

Is it?
Not for everyone id imagine!?

Cost of car+tax+repairs+petrol+parking < Cost of public transport tickets?

Suppose it depends on where you live and how much travelling you do!?
***

I moved to ierland because the netherlands are not what you all think, public transport is crap and expensive aswell (since they felt the need to privatice). Holland is one city with some parks in between. Ireland is much cheaper to live in then Holland by any means and the wages higher! The netherlands are much smaller by size but bigger in popelation. Even with the small distance it's still cheaper by car, specially when travelling with 2 people or more. Yes we do have later tains and busses.

my point was only that when travvelling with two or more a car is cheaper unless you hardly travel, no matter what country in europe.

Living where we life a car is a necessity. so the tax and insurance are already paid no matter the miles I do. On top of that the petrol is 25 cent cheaper per liter here!

I just think that if people are serious about getting peopple out of the car you must make public transport really cheap. In Hasselt, Belgium the busses are free and that got lots of people out the car.

And I do love ireland and rural living, just hate the trip to dublin to pick people up!:)

genie

It used to take my Mum 12 hours to get from Co Sligo to my grandmother in Rotterdam. The one and only time she took the Sligo train to Dublin it broke down and she missed her flight. After that she always flew from Sligo to Dublin even though it meant going without a cigarette for most of the 12 hours!

She lives an hour away from Stanstead Airport now and there is a coach to the airport on the hour every hour. Makes you sick really! :rolleyes:

There is a bus on a Thursday which goes through Riverstown, leaves around 11 and is back around 3. Don't know how people can do their shopping and other bits and bobs during that time TBH.

I think Geevagh is served by the Carrigallen (?) bus but I've no idea what time or what day. It's probably something ridiculous like all the other rural buses.

darealtulip

genie wrote: »

It used to take my Mum 12 hours to get from Co Sligo to my grandmother in Rotterdam. The one and only time she took the Sligo train to Dublin it broke down and she missed her flight. After that she always flew from Sligo to Dublin even though it meant going without a cigarette for most of the 12 hours!

She lives an hour away from Stanstead Airport now and there is a coach to the airport on the hour every hour. Makes you sick really! :rolleyes:

There is a bus on a Thursday which goes through Riverstown, leaves around 11 and is back around 3. Don't know how people can do their shopping and other bits and bobs during that time TBH.

I think Geevagh is served by the Carrigallen (?) bus but I've no idea what time or what day. It's probably something ridiculous like all the other rural buses.

I am from rotterdam and it taakes my maw about 14 hours over eindhoven, flying is the short bit, I leave the same time as her to get her from dublin:mad: (not that I really mind to sniff a bit of city once and a while, it is culture shock for me;))

elshambo

Tulip; Id say something was lost in translation in your original post!;)
It read to me like you were talking about ireland, not europe in general:)


That auld catch 22:
Public transport will never be fully functional until people forget their cars
People will not forget their cars until public transport is fully functional

It would take a huge investment to make it work anything like 100% right and as the op shows, people dont want tax money being spent on transport for others (which is fair enough!?)

ooh And welcome to Hell!
.
.
.
.
.
or Connaught

darealtulip wrote: »

I am from rotterdam

I once spent a tuesday night in rotterdam
It was as quiet as Sligo on a tuesday
So the adjustment probably wasnt that hard for you?

Mrs.T

magnumlady wrote: »

What 10 euro return?

Sligo to Dublin is €10 return if you book on internet. Runs until 31st January.

daithijjj

I get the coach to dublin all the time, its 15 euro return mon - thur........get a ticket at the desk in the station.........27 return at weekends i believe. Use my laptop the whole way, opportunity to have a cheeky ciggie at longford on the way.......bargain as far as im concerned.

darealtulip

elshambo wrote: »

I once spent a tuesday night in rotterdam
It was as quiet as Sligo on a tuesday
So the adjustment probably wasnt that hard for you?

yeah tuesday are sh1t!!:D it wastnt that much adjustment if had moved to sligo, instead we moved right in the middle of nowhere. It was so dark I stumbbled over my car more then once! (so maybe better there were no busses) We moved into a village now and are very happy here.

and the rovers are doing better then my home team (Feyenoord) so dubble happy here.

anyway, indeed catch 22, is there any park and rides near dublin? I didnt find one yet unless you park at one of the retail parks that is.

magnumlady

Mrs.T wrote: »

Sligo to Dublin is €10 return if you book on internet. Runs until 31st January.

On the train?

Mrs.T

magnumlady wrote: »

On the train?

Arrgh! Sorry, pregnancy brain attack! It is for the bus. We just booked one for the Mother in Law

magnumlady

Oh right thanks, I'm going to stick with the train...I hate buses.:(

starbelgrade

magnumlady wrote: »

I think the daily bus you see in Coolaney is the school bus.

As far as I know the only Bus Eireann bus service is on a Friday. It leaves Coolaney at 11am and is back at 3pm.
http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1202387942-479.pdf

There is the Tubber access bus that goes a couple of times a week.

I see... so if I loose the car I can leave the village once a week. Excellent!

magnumlady

starbelgrade wrote: »

I see... so if I loose the car I can leave the village once a week. Excellent!

I know its a fantastic service:rolleyes:

starbelgrade

magnumlady wrote: »

I know its a fantastic service:rolleyes:

Yep - definitely worth the portion we pay of the €400 million of tax payers cash to subsidise the rest of the country's public transport services!

Xiney

Just came back from Manchester.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's not comparable to anything Ireland has... but it is just about the easiest place to get your flight.

I mean, we were shopping until 6 pm, then we took the tram to our hotel which was right next to Picadilly, then got on the train to Manchester Airport, arrived ~25 minutes later (the train had to wait about 5 minutes for a platform but no worries) and it took about 5-10 minutes to get to the check in desk.

Essentially, we were back to shopping (this time in duty free) in about an hour.


Really efficient. I can't wait to go again (and next time I'll save more money for the MAC duty free counter...)

starbelgrade

There was a good program about the western rail link, presented by Duncan Stewart last night on RTE (yeah, I know .. shock horror!) - it would be savage if this got up & running again.

Apparantely in 1925 we'd 5,500 km of railway tracks that interlinked a large portion of Irish towns with each other... ie., you could travel from Sligo to almost anywhere in Ireland without having to travel to Dublin to change trains! Now, we have less than half the amount of railway tracks & nearly every single line runs to & from Dublin with little or no interlinking between anywhere else in the country.

Rail - wise, we are going backwards.

Xiney

starbelgrade wrote: »

There was a good program about the western rail link, presented by Duncan Stewart last night on RTE (yeah, I know .. shock horror!) - it would be savage if this got up & running again.

Apparantely in 1925 we'd 5,500 km of railway tracks that interlinked a large portion of Irish towns with each other... ie., you could travel from Sligo to almost anywhere in Ireland without having to travel to Dublin to change trains! Now, we have less than half the amount of railway tracks & nearly every single line runs to & from Dublin with little or no interlinking between anywhere else in the country.

Rail - wise, we are going backwards.

The reason for that is simple, though.

Up to the early part of the 20th century, the fastest, most efficient way to transport goods and people overland was via rail. The steam engine was never entirely successfully adapted to track-less land transportation.

Once the petrol engine caught on, road transportation became more efficient because it's much cheaper to build roads than train tracks. Since it was cheaper, less people used the rail lines and they eventually became too costly to maintain.


In fact, this chain of events has happened all over the world - it's not going backwards at all in terms of progress, although it would be great to re-open the western rail corridor, it's unlikely to be profitable on a passenger only basis and unless you are shipping a huge amount of product, rail transportation simply can not compete with trucks.

elshambo

starbelgrade wrote: »

We all know how bad the public transport sytem is in Sligo, but do you know how much we are paying for it? CIE, which owns Iarnrod Eireann, Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus, recorded a spectacular operating deficit of €406 million in 2007, which we the taxpayers subsidised.


So, all this money is poured out of our pockets & into inneficient, loss making companies & what does Sligo get out of it? Feck all, as usual, meanwhile we're subsidising the likes of Dublin Bus.

Typical. It makes you wonder what on earth the local councellors get up to of a week day.

starbelgrade wrote: »

I see... so if I loose the car I can leave the village once a week. Excellent!

starbelgrade wrote: »

There was a good program about the western rail link, presented by Duncan Stewart last night on RTE (yeah, I know .. shock horror!) - it would be savage if this got up & running again.

Apparantely in 1925 we'd 5,500 km of railway tracks that interlinked a large portion of Irish towns with each other... ie., you could travel from Sligo to almost anywhere in Ireland without having to travel to Dublin to change trains! Now, we have less than half the amount of railway tracks & nearly every single line runs to & from Dublin with little or no interlinking between anywhere else in the country.

Rail - wise, we are going backwards.

You want them to close unprofitable routes that dont affect you
and open more unprofitable routes that do affect you?


its called a car!
:rolleyes:

tuppence

Yea for the western rail corridor too! And fair play to Duncan Stewart (again) for promoting it. It make sense, beats congestion, promoting tourism, haulage and jobs, reconnecting the west. The lack of development of rail in favour of roads has been a travesty. I hope they dont drop it down the priority list with the recession. It would be so short sighted. They certainly might try and loose the last leg of it cos I reckon thats going to be more expensive. (Think there a bridge or two they have to build.) Anyway with the local elections coming up perhaps its something that we can remind politicians about.

Speaking of which re the train service to Sligo. Is there still no train thats get people from the hinterlands in for 9am? Just the early bird one to Dublin. That seems like something that loads of people from Ballymote, colloney, Carrick could use to work in Sligo. Dont understand why they dont but then all roads and rails seem to cater for Dublin.:rolleyes: