The latest setback to establishing a bus service for Carlow is being described as an “extremely disappointing” development.
It comes as the NTA has written to the County Council, claiming that funding hasn’t been provided by central government for the project.
However, this week’s meeting of Carlow Municipal District heard that the National Transport Authority has refused to meet with local councillors to discuss the issue further.
Cllr John Cassin says it’s not good enough for the people of Carlow;
“People are looking for a bus service here, our town is becoming choked up again because of the traffic. There are a couple of road projects that need to be finished off that aren’t completed. A bus service would take a lot of pressure off there, if we had a service up and running” he explained. “People going into town to do their shopping, people going to the college, work, whatever the case may be, there’s huge potential for this. It’s extremely disappointing that we’re still having to make a case for Carlow to have a bus service after one empty promise after another. We won’t be letting this go until the service is up and operational”
The independent councillor says it’s especially difficult to see neighbouring counties like Kilkenny moving forward with their own public transport;
“We’ve been promised our own bus service for a long, long time” he told KCLR News. “It was supposed in or around the same time as the Kilkenny bus service, which is operating for well over a year now. We still haven’t got even as much as a bus sign up, let alone a bus. The letter from the NTA explained that it’s actually the government, and the Department of Transport, that hasn’t funded it. So we’ve asked for the council to write to the Department, and our five TDs in Carlow Kilkenny, to make sure we get the proper funding for our bus service.”
