Plans for Mullingar bus service are “advanced” – but funding an issue

Planning for a bus service in Mullingar that would have two routes with twice-hourly buses on each route is at an advanced stage – but a significant stumbling block is the issue of funding, the National Transport Authority has revealed this week.

“We don’t have any funding yet identified for this project,” Marion Wilson, head of service planning with the National Transport Authority (NTA), said in a presentation to members of the Mullingar Municipal District at their September monthly meeting yesterday (Monday September 14).

However, she said, hand in hand with officials from Westmeath County Council, planning is going ahead so that if funding is allocated, the service can quickly be launched.

The design of the routes has been given priority, but decisions have yet to be finalised – particularly on the options for the eastern side of Mullingar, between Lakepoint Retail Park and the Marlinstown Business Park.

Ms Wilson told the Municipal District members that the county council intends to hold a public consultation process on the route options, most likely before this Christmas.

She also revealed that the contract documents are in preparation, and that a bus operator would be engaged through public competition.

Ms Wilson said the aim was to provide a “simple, memorable, regular timetable”, and also to provide connections to points from which passengers could travel onwards, particularly the railway station. It is to run seven days a week, and 95 per cent of the town’s population will be within an 800 metre walk of a bus stop and 77 per cent will be within 400 metres.

“What we want to do is focus resources on clear and legible public transport options that will allow a number of people to get a good level of service and a good journey time to where they want to go,” said Ms Wilson, explaining that if these objectives were achieved, this would influence behaviour away from car use to public transport. “That in turn will generate more activity and more interest in the network so that more and more people can join in,” she stated.

The proposed Route 1 will start in the Mullingar Business Park and head out towards what Ms Wilson described as “the western suburbs”, taking in the shopping areas, coming back in to the railway station and on to the hospital, then the town centre. Some choices remain to be made in terms of the eastern end of that route, covering areas such as Lakepoint retail park, she added.

Route 2 is to start at Lough Sheever Park and travels out towards Ballinderry,

Factors that had to be considered when devising the routes were the existence of the various “peripherally-located” business parks such as Marlinstown and Lough Sheever, as well as the healthcare facilities at St Loman’s hospital and the St Francis healthcare facility.

It was, she continued, a town with a growing population, and the population density indicated it could support a public transport system.

Daily, Ms Wilson said, there are around 6,000 trips to work and education taken within the town, which was, she said, another good indicator that the town could support a bus service. At present, three out of every four work journeys and half of all school trips in Mullingar are made by car. At the same time, around 18 per cent of the population don’t have access to the primary car in their household.

Ms Wilson said that Mullingar is one of the towns for which the National Development Plan has called for town bus service provision, and other national and regional policy documents are calling for actions to promote increases in walking, cycling and the use of public transport as opposed to private car use.