How temporary is the "temporary" bus depot on the Rahoon Road?

Iwannahurl

If I recall correctly, the bus depot on the Rahoon Road, opposite the junction with Bothar Stiofain, was to be a temporary arrangement.

Up to 2007/2008 the site was a rather run-down farm. For the last few years it's been a rather run-down defunct farm, minus cattle, with a bus depot in the yard and a garage in the old cowshed.

It looks grotty, IMO, even if functional. When are they due to move to more salubrious premises commensurate with a modern bus service? Or to put it another way, when does the planning permission expire?

jimbobaloobob

Curious why you ask.

Iwannahurl

1. 'Visual amenity'. What was there before was a rather untidy farm, with mucky cattle huddled in a dirty yard, a bleak-looking two-storey farmhouse, some disintegrating outbuildings and a few rusting old vehicles. The cattle are gone now, and while the ground floor of the semi-derelict farmhouse now functions as as office the upstairs is boarded up and the whole place looks very ramshackle. You mightn't be shocked to see such a set-up in deepest Albania or Romania, but doesn't Galway City like to see itself as the capital of cool? Is such a facility appropriate for a modern bus service in a modern city? Granted it's not a passenger facility, but a professional image is important and IMO a bus company operating out of a derelict farmhouse isn't doing itself any favours image-wise.

2. Orderly urban planning. If it's planned as a temporary facility then that's what it should be. Four years or so later, and it's still there. I'm open to correction on this point, but I believe planning permission for the temporary facility expired in 2010. I fully understand that an expanding private bus company may need a temporary base, but ultimately it should be moving to a more suitable premises.

I have nothing against the bus company in question, and in fact I use their service. I'd just prefer to see them looking more modern. It might help their business to attract passengers, IMO.

Cheshire Cat

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I'd just prefer to see them looking more modern. It might help their business to attract passengers, IMO.

I'd prefer them to invest into their fleet instead. Most of their buses are beyond a joke and the number of "break-downs" is not acceptable. Having said that, I still use them and am glad that Knocknacarra has the service. With just BE we would be pretty stuck!

Mrs OBumble

Iwannahurl wrote: »

.... You mightn't be shocked to see such a set-up in deepest Albania or Romania, but doesn't Galway City like to see itself as the capital of cool?

I know some Romanians who could be offended at a statement like that!

... agree re capital of cool, but I'm not sure that the image extends to the back roads of Rahoon though. In fact, the sheer ugliness of the shops in Westside offends me more than the ramshackle bus depot.

Pure Sound

As long as the buses are safe I don't see what the problem is, the building in question was unsightly before and will continue to be so whether they were there or not, maybe a refurb should be considered, they are a local company that I would imagine don't have the funds to be building an extravagant bus depot, especially when you consider that land and property prices in Galway are still extremely overpriced


We need more public transport, without those buses traffic would be far worse, I think that immediately forcing a permanent bus depot could affect the service they provide

Robbo

Iwannahurl wrote: »

If I recall correctly, the bus depot on the Rahoon Road, opposite the junction with Bothar Stiofain, was to be a temporary arrangement.

Up to 2007/2008 the site was a rather run-down farm. For the last few years it's been a rather run-down defunct farm, minus cattle, with a bus depot in the yard and a garage in the old cowshed.

It looks grotty, IMO, even if functional. When are they due to move to more salubrious premises commensurate with a modern bus service? Or to put it another way, when does the planning permission expire?

Perhaps the Planning Office would be your first port of call.

The aesthetics don't bother me, after all it's supposed to be an industrial building. I'd be more concerned with the poor adherence to a timetable and the effect that having to budget for a more salubrious garage would do to that service. Who knows, maybe it'll become one of those eyesores that gains protected status, like Liberty Hall or the Central Bank.

As other have pointed out, they're a welcome addition to the BE service which is a shambles over the west side of the city. People can go on about how successful the Number 9 is, but it's not hard to claim a success when you've thrown all you've got at the low hanging fruit.

inisboffin

At the moment, there are plans to have a bus lane dedicated section on the Rahoon Rd (from BO'D road just to the graveyard). Local residents seem against it as a whole (for a bunch of different reasons including usefulness of such a short section, safety, structural damage, land grabs etc). I am fairly sure there was mention of the Bus DEPOT being nearby, and figuring in to all this. The lane is, in effect, only to benefit City Direct buses. City Direct are a private company.

Also, due to some other odd Transportation byelaws, the Bus Eireann buses have no *licence* to pick up on some of the roads that City Direct does (Rahoon Rd for example), so unless there is a way to change that, there is no point on them expanding a route to those roads.

Mrs OBumble

inisboffin wrote: »

At the moment, there are plans to have a bus lane dedicated section on the Rahoon Rd (from BO'D road just to the graveyard). ... The lane is, in effect, only to benefit City Direct buses. City Direct are a private company.

I think that the bus lane will benefit the passengers as much as it does the company. Don't see that the state-owned vs privately-owned distinction is particuarly relevant, except that the govt oligopoly gives BE some nasty advantages over the private companies.

inisboffin wrote: »

Also, due to some other odd Transportation byelaws, the Bus Eireann buses have no *licence* to pick up on some of the roads that City Direct does (Rahoon Rd for example), so unless there is a way to change that, there is no point on them expanding a route to those roads.

It's central govt laws, not local byelaws, that govern bus route licensing. There has been a rule that if one company is licensed for a street, no other company can have a license for that street. So the only reason that CD got a licence for those roads was that BE wasn't serving them in the first place.

I believe these laws are (have) changed. And I sincerely hope that the SQR upgrade will lead to substantial improvements in the buses from Knocknacarra. It sooo should be possible to replicate route 9's success, given the population out there.

Iwannahurl

Cheshire Cat wrote: »

I'd prefer them to invest into their fleet instead. Most of their buses are beyond a joke and the number of "break-downs" is not acceptable. Having said that, I still use them and am glad that Knocknacarra has the service. With just BE we would be pretty stuck!

The focus of my OP was just the depot. However, I would see all these things as part of a syndrome. A ramshackle bus service operating out of a ramshackle depot?

Other things I would like to see remedied are their grumpy unhelpful drivers (there are a couple) and their speeding. I saw one (empty) bus doing 80+ on Bothar Stiofain.

I wasn't aware of the recurring breakdowns -- hasn't happened on any occasion I have used the service over a number of years.

Iwannahurl

inisboffin wrote: »

At the moment, there are plans to have a bus lane dedicated section on the Rahoon Rd (from BO'D road just to the graveyard). Local residents seem against it as a whole (for a bunch of different reasons including usefulness of such a short section, safety, structural damage, land grabs etc). I am fairly sure there was mention of the Bus DEPOT being nearby, and figuring in to all this. The lane is, in effect, only to benefit City Direct buses. City Direct are a private company.

Also, due to some other odd Transportation byelaws, the Bus Eireann buses have no *licence* to pick up on some of the roads that City Direct does (Rahoon Rd for example), so unless there is a way to change that, there is no point on them expanding a route to those roads.

The licensing system is a mess, as far as I can see. I believe AGS have a role in approving bus-stops, for example. To what benefit?

inisboffin

JustMary wrote: »

I think that the bus lane will benefit the passengers as much as it does the company. Don't see that the state-owned vs privately-owned distinction is particuarly relevant, except that the govt oligopoly gives BE some nasty advantages over the private companies.

I dunno if you have seen the plan for the proposed 'lane', it's not a great one tbh. There's a lot of politics with this particular Company and 'looking the other way' on issues on the part of the City Council. In this case I wouldn't necessarily agree about the BE advantages

JustMary wrote: »

It's central govt laws, not local byelaws, that govern bus route licensing. There has been a rule that if one company is licensed for a street, no other company can have a license for that street. So the only reason that CD got a licence for those roads was that BE wasn't serving them in the first place.

Yeah, I knew it was national laws, just didn't know the specifics of how it worked. I agree that BE have fallen short in the past, but now that there *is* competition, there is no reason for the customers to suffer. When the BE buses were rerouted for instance, they weren't allowed to pick up, which was a big inconvenience for the customers. CD seem to ignore all pick up drop off rules except when it suits them. I'm all for flexibility of stop on a quiet road, but sometimes it's downright dangerous how they stop and let passengers disembark at random places, particularly for unsuspecting motorists and cyclists.

JustMary wrote: »

I believe these laws are (have) changed. And I sincerely hope that the SQR upgrade will lead to substantial improvements in the buses from Knocknacarra. It sooo should be possible to replicate route 9's success, given the population out there.

Agreed, hopefully they will use common sense in how they use any funds.

Iwannahurl

inisboffin wrote: »

I dunno if you have seen the plan for the proposed 'lane', it's not a great one tbh. There's a lot of politics with this particular Company and 'looking the other way' on issues on the part of the City Council. In this case I wouldn't necessarily agree about the BE advantages

When the BE buses were rerouted for instance, they weren't allowed to pick up, which was a big inconvenience for the customers. CD seem to ignore all pick up drop off rules except when it suits them. I'm all for flexibility of stop on a quiet road, but sometimes it's downright dangerous how they stop and let passengers disembark at random places, particularly for unsuspecting motorists and cyclists.

So far, so Irish. This is what I'm getting at, though the OP was only about the semi-derelict depot.

Why can we not do things in an orderly and professional manner?

Some people like the 'random' bus-stops, but it really gets my goat. Put proper bus stops and shelters along a route and then use only those. This business of people standing at ESB poles at several locations along the Rahoon Road, for example, drives me bonkers. I have seen it happen in no other European country that I have been to.

I've seen their "timetable" taped to such a pole (photo somewhere on disk), and what kind of approved bus-stop is this?

Looking the other way is of course standard Irish practice (the deliberate ignoring of rampant illegal parking being one example) and I have been told that the Council likes these random unscheduled stops because they help to slow down traffic!

Mrs OBumble

Iwannahurl wrote: »

So far, so Irish. This is what I'm getting at, though the OP was only about the semi-derelict depot.

Why can we not do things in an orderly and professional manner?

I am soooo not going to comment on that!

But I will say that using only official bus stops, approved by AGS, is a condition of the bus route licence.

If a driver lets you on/off elsewhere, s/he is breaking the law. If you ask him/her to do so, you are asking him to break the law.

These laws were made because some people died after a bus stopped at a totally unsuitable place.

Anything more I could say here is opinion, rathr than fact, so I'm keeping it to myself. This is an Irish problem, that Irish people need to sort out. And though I'm talking about bus-stops, the same principle applies to the original issue too.

Iwannahurl

Last year, when heading west on a newly opened stretch of the M6, I saw a bus (private operator) parked in the hard shoulder just past an off-ramp.

The driver had just let off a passenger, who I noticed was running across and up the off-ramp.

Bus-stops on a motorway -- only in Ireland? Motorways are still a bit new-fangled perhaps...

inisboffin

I'll be really honest and say it's probably the thing I love *and* hate most about the way we do things here. I love the fact that some people get creative when ridiculous rules seem to exist, and hate that people make stupid choices, 'that'll do' type stuff, instead of following/improving a system.

It is something I noticed more after travelling for a few years.

An example of that duality would be the bus stop thing. Years ago a family member got a rural bus (not in Galway) to work. The 'bus stop' nearest where she wanted to go was unlit, near a dangerous bend and no houses around. Some drivers would only stop there

. She used to get a certain tme bus as she knew this one driver would break the rules. He'd pull in at a business down the road, still lit at night, near houses and plenty of room to be seen stopping. Sensible rule breaking. They also wrote in about the stop, which was eventually moved, but not for years.

An example of the opposite of this is the CD guys. I understand they may be trying to accommodate requests but where and how they do it sometimes is nuts! Swerving in, I saw a bike hit the back of one once.

There must be a happy medium.