New Carlow town bus service

I am not at all familiar with Carlow. However, is it not a bit disconnected that a town bus does not visit the railway station?

the bus meeting the train? shur nobody wants that begorra begosh and be jaysus.

yeah if they have omitted the train station from the service then that is a ridiculous omission which makes no sense and i cannot understand why and how that has happened/been missed.

hopefully it will be reviewed.

The bus is supposed to serve the travelling public and the railway station is one source of such, they should not have to walk 400m with bags etc because if the inability to design a proper route.

Do the letters CW for these bus routes would stand for Carlow West or maybe something else? I'm not familiar with Carlow either. The 30 minute frequency on these routes are not too bad.

I don't like the idea that the train station should be completely omitted from these new bus routes in Carlow Town. Is it coming from a viewpoint that the quality of transport infrastructure in Carlow is not up to scratch for it's population?

It does serve an important purpose to have a local bus route serving the train station from a customers point of view. You would see local bus routes that serve the town's train station in places like Sligo, Dundalk, Drogheda, Athlone & Balbriggan.

It does seem odd to not have a local bus route not directly serving a local train station in an area like Carlow.

With all due respect on this; if you mean turn right coming IN Green Lane, it's a hoor of a turn with a b***h of a traffic island there aswell; indeed I don't think vehicular traffic can turn right here; it's only left turn when coming down Green Lane from Barrack St./Tullow St. etc.

If it follows route you're suggesting, then if it manages this turn & with train station on the right, it has to go up by CBS & then either left & past Leos/Courthouse & right out Athy Rd. & Greenbanks / Gda. Stn. & then left again past Leos & back down past train station....am I understanding you right?

Alternatives incl. going back out Athy Rd. & up Cannery Rd.......and back in Green Lane.......

Not sure what the answer re lack of train station stop is to be honest; in theory we can say Green Lane/Carlow F&RS is "close enough" but in reality public transport needs to be connected.

But serving railway station would also allow for, depending on subsequent route going left in by Leos or right out by Carlow LTC & SVDP Hostel + St. Marys Graveyard, access to hospital grounds; caveat here is main entrance to St. Dympnas is on other side, Athy Rd. albeit, able bodied person can walk through campus no problem.

Omitting hospital & train station seem odd for sure but there may be no logistical way round it unless certain road layouts like I've mentioned're changed and given consultation period ended late Oct. 2020 & these plans were actually shown to Cllrs. in 2018, then we may be too late & have to wait for other bus routes to come on stream....if these're successful.

Just might be a road layout/logistical issue with right turn from Green Lane.

Dir. of Transport would be worth touching base with on this by email since public consultation period closed Oct. 2020; Chocolate Teapot TD clearly wasn't vocal enough & perhaps despite local media flagging it at the time & Co. Cllrs. & it was on LAs website, social media feeds, maybe there's precedent, a demand to reopen the PCP?

They did; it did; I wasn't around but you'll still see the blue bus stop poles (JJ Kavanagh blue?) in certain parts of the town; on Kilkenny Rd. there is, or used to be, one; think on Staplestown/Tullow & Pollerton Rd. too.

Is there any sign of a service yet, or is it still just a plan?

I had clicked the link before asking, funily enough.

But all I got was a screenshot of the proposal from February 2021. With some underlaid text about when it is scheduled to start.

Scheduled is bah-humbug talk until there's a definite start date, timetable and fares.

Wonder will these routes be operated by BE or will they be tendered out like City Direct in Kilkenny. Another possibility could be to transfer some Streetlites from GAI for this and then possibly replace those with double deckers although that's probably less likely.

So no, it's not actually a service yet. Just a plan with a map dated Fen 2021. A delayed plan at that (was supposed to be September 2022).

Service is now due to start in May some time with 5 busses for the 2 routes, and an operator has been secured, presumably Bus Éireann. Work seems to have also started on some of the bus stops

I wondering weather it will be Bus Eireann operating these new services, I would not be surprised if JJ Kavanagh get its to be honest.

Ahh perfect, didn't know they released the operator name. Streetlights from Athlone are a perfect fit for Carlow, We are getting there, nice to see new routes been added all the time. Lets not forget all the new Local links that have been creeping in over the last few months aswell.

It will boil down to what the contract that the NTA set requires.

Nothing to do with who operates it.

They should but knowing BEs form when it comes to repainting buses they won't. DB have always repainted buses every 3-4 years for as long as I remember whereas BE do not.

I wonder why this is only DB policy but not CIE as a whole policy or what was the policy prior to the breakup of CIE.

Hopefully! But even in Athlone they still had the old white/red Bus Éireann busses alongside the new blue/yellow ones so who knows!

Seems to be good progress coming along with the bus stops themselves. They've even done up Bóthar Uí Bhriain with new tarmac and Bus marked on the road.

Here's hoping the May date is still a go!

Just saw an ad on the BE website advertising for driver vacancies based in Carlow so they must be looking to get this service up and running in the coming months.

Taken from Facebook.

A July start date is disappointing but 6am to 12am runtime is fantastic! The Athlone town bus, that this seems modelled after only runs from 7am til 8pm!

I asumme aswell that he means €1.10 for Leap and €2 cash.