Galway traffic

That's not quite what the article says.

I thought same until recently, if RR gets canned then they just might just spend the money on Light Rail line? Could be a decade rather than decades. More than likely it will pretty much follow exact same route as Bus Connects anyhow.

When he says that "quite advanced work has also been done on the Dublin Road" is he talking about the Galway Clinic Roundabout? Or is there more?

I have been thinking about improvements to the corridor / route from Galway to Athenry.

Double track the railway line

Eliminate all level crossings (I think there are five)

Build new stations: one in Renmore, one in Roscam, and more see below

Consider a tram-train operation like Karlsruhe

Spur off railway line near Merlin bar, with tram line to run into Merlin Park hospital, where new elective hosp is planned.

Aerial phots from Google suggest this could be done without much demolition of existing housing.

Merlin Park hosp seems to have space for housing also?

Possibly continue that tram line through towards Briarhill, and then Parkmore, although this section would be more difficult

A second spur off the railway line, east of existing Oranmore station, with a tram line running into Oranmore centre, site of station behind BellaBaby or near An Fuaran

Trams or trains to run as follows:

One service: Athenry - towards city - spur into Oranmore - back out the spur - Oranmore coast road station - Roscam station - Renmore station - Ceannt

Other service: Parkmore - Briarhill - Dougiska - Merlin Park hosp - join main railway line - Renmore - Ceannt

Athenry - field on Church street to be developed into housing, and more sites nearby.

I am trying to think how the tram line could split from the railway line after the Lough Atalia bridge, but I am getting stuck..........

Thanks for that DaCor - I've seen the plans before alright, but was just wondering what the Minister was on about.

To me, the sequencing for Bus Connects Galway is strange - they're starting with the (IMO) most difficult section first - the Cross-City Link - but I believe that the Dublin Road one would have the most bang for the buck, without the disruption that the Cross-City link will cause. When it's finished, the Dublin Road project will allow no less cars on it then currently - so no possible cribbing from motorists, but will allow bus commuters to sail by four kilometers of traffic in the morning and evening and make it obvious to drivers what their choices should be. In fact, that project should be more ambitious and go all the way out to the Oranbeg Roundabout on the dual carriageway. If it started at the Oranbeg roundabout it would be 8K of Bus & Cycle Lanes as far as Moneenageisha.

There's a bus an hour from Gort to Galway. I've used this service and it's decent. 50 mins each way.

Sorry-not-sorry that I left out "For all practical purposes," from the start of my post.

The existing bus pretty much offers the same as the train route. A bus that did more useful things would probably be even busier.

It's a pity that the Oranmore train station is located nowhere near all where all the new housing estates are being built in Oranmore. Or actually close to the town itself.

For example, it's a 31 min walk from Oranmore train station to the new Coill Clocha estate currently open/being built. Or a 20 min walk from the main street. The train station then only serves Eyre square so unless you work bang in the middle of town, it's not really worth using.

There is no PT service from Oranmore to the industrial estates.

Do many people actually use that Oranmore - Galway service daily, with the work commute being the reason?

A frequent shuttle bus would only be helpful if there was a frequent train to meet it.

No, somebody else said there is no specific Galway-Gort bus, please see post 6987.

In post 6992 I replied, saying that there is the route 434 with one bus.

Neither post was about the 51.

That's a fair point. I've used the bus several times before for Shannon Airport and Limerick and have never seen it full. But I've always pre-booked and you can never know if it's going to be swamped by people at the airport or leaving Galway.

Relying on bus transport as the only method of inner city public transport is not acceptable in 2022.

Yup, both the 401 and 405 were cancelled at the same time last night leaving me with a choice of either waiting 40+ minutes or walking.

I've sent multiple complaints to Bus Éireann (about previous cancellations), I've received one reply which, after confirming my bus was cancelled due to a shortage of drivers, they've said this :

"I can assure you that our AVL supervisors are continuing to monitor this route. Every effort is being made to ensure our services are operating as per scheduled timetable. As mentioned we are currently training additional drivers for our city services and to date the number of cancellations have decreased. Once again please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused on this occasion. Thank you for bringing this to our attention."

So basically, we know it was cancelled, but we're not really going to do anything about it.