CITY TRIBUNE

New bus routes to link Barna to Ballybrit and Parkmore

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Ray Murray, operator of the new service

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – People working shifts in Parkmore and Ballybrit will finally get a round-the-clock bus service over the Quincentenary Bridge – which has been touted as the key to attracting commuters out of the cars travelling west to east grinding Galway to a crawl.

Licenses have been granted to the Galway Tour Company to start two routes beginning in Barna and travelling across the most densely populated parts of Knocknacarra and dropping them off at the biggest employers on the east of the city.

From early in the new year, there will be 12 buses a day on the Parkmore route and 10 servicing Ballybrit, with the first buses running from 5.45am and the first pickup from the industrial estates at 1.15am to facilitate employees on shifts throughout the night.

The buses will be comfortable 60-seater coaches with toilets and wifi on board. Daily return journeys will cost between €5 and €6. Weekly commuter tickets will be available while passes will be offered to employers who wish to entice their workers onto public transport.

Galway Tour Company Managing Director Ray Murray said the new services had the potential to take at least 40 cars off the road per bus if they proved popular.

He is hoping if there is a good take-up of the service, it will convince Galway City Council to throw their weight behind creating bus lanes – even contra flow lanes which change direction at peak times – across the Quincentenary Bridge and Bothar na dTreabh in order to speed up journey times.

The company is estimating it would take up to an hour from Barna to Parkmore and Ballybrit at peak hours to complete the journey but that could be cut almost in half if bus lanes were in place. Cutting journey times would also encourage more people to leave their cars at home.

This is a shortened preview version of this article. For more on this story, including the exact routes and times, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.

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