A new daily Local Link bus service route, (391) in conjunction with the National Transport Authority, will connect Thurles (Departing Thurles Railway Station) with Limerick, beginning its service on Monday next, September 23rd.
This route will include stops in Ballycahill; Upperchurch; Kilcommon; Rearcross; Newport; Knockbrack; University College Limerick (UL), haulting at Authors Quay.
Same is expected to bring about a permanent enhancement and a long-term transport solution to meet the needs of 3rd level students, city and town shoppers and other visiting commuters, living in these rural areas.
The first daily service will depart from Thurles at 7:00am, while the last daily service will depart at 4:00pm.
The first return bus service (Departing Author’s Quay) from Limerick will leave at 8.50am, with the last service departing this same return Limerick – Thurles route at 5.50pm.
Note: All services will be in operation seven days a week, including Bank Holiday Mondays.
Does this service pick up passengers at the side of the road i.e. at their home?. If not then please suspend services immediately and don’t waste taxpayers money. What good is a bus services that requires user’s to have a car to get to the bus stop? More fudging pretending to offer a service that does not serve a communities needs.
I could not agree more with Seamus O’Sullivan’s concerns about the new three times daily Local Link service between Thurles and Limerick.
The designated bus stops along the route are so few that even people living adjacent to the Newport Road would need some other form of transport to get to a bus stop.
I concede that designated stops are necessary to ensure the bus can run to a timetable and having as few stops as possible will facilitate this requirement, but the service, as currently configured, cannot meet its primary objective, which should be to significantly improve the public transport infrastructure for people living in a rural setting.
Although Seamus’s insistence that the service should be immediately withdrawn to save public money is a bit extreme, I suspect that his wish may ultimately come true since, if the service remains as inaccessible as it is at present and caters for an expected and disappointingly small number of customers, it seems inevitable that, in time, it will be judged to be non-viable and will cease.
Maybe that is what was intended, since the current arrangements appear to have set it up to fail.