Waterford Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy

Badly needed, Ferrybank has been a car dominated hellhole for far too long.

Metropolitan area? Ok

Not driving everywhere for everything will be a big culture shock for many in the city, but particularly those from the surrounding rural areas.

A regular bus route from the Dunmore Road area out the ring road to WIT and the industrial estate would shift hundreds and potentially thousands of cars off the roads every morning.

Having a secondary school serving the Dunmore Road area would do likewise.

Pleased to see a park and ride mooted - makes total sense.

Could never understand why there is not a bus route from the Dunmore road to the Cork road area.

id actually agree with some of this, the new bridge either shouldnt have been tolled at all or publicly tolled, i understand cost of construction and maintenance of such is off the walls, but i have a major problem with the privatisation of such, and pure wealth extraction of critically needed infrastructure, we urgently need to create a public infrastructure bank to part fund such needs, this is common practice around the world, and is known to work reasonably well to..... we cant keep taxing the sh1t out of people for these needs, particularly the labour force, its just not going to work!

.....transport is a critical public need, so it must be a critical part of public policy, therefore it must be a part of government... but yes, the failures at other levels, as mentioned by yourself, are starting to truly show now, and is sadly and unfortunately starting to collapse now, including previous transport polices. we ve been promoting the use and need of the private car for decades now, and its failures are now severe, but we have convinced ourselves that a shift back to public transport will work, but theres clearly going to be serious failures with this, modern society has been designed around the car, shifting back will be extremely difficult, probably impossible for many.....

Yes, I agree with your assessment, a large amount of fantasy here. This country has been built around the car for decades and you can't just build a few bus lanes and cycle lanes and expect that to end. To make this any way viable, you would need a massive increase in the provision of buses but I cannot see this happening. How many buses would we need to replace car journeys?

Another point is in relation to the cycle lanes. I would guess that the percentage of overall journeys made by bike must be a fraction of 1% of total journeys. Yet the plan hopes to increase bike journeys five fold. So even this pie in the sky plan doesn't expect the public to use bicycles on any meaningful level.

Before anyone says it, yes, I'm a very negative voice, yes, it would be good if we could reduce car journeys. However, I simply can't see any realistic way of doing that and turning the bridge into a one lane each way job is insanity.

such public polices are missing a key ingredient, the holistic view, states seem to seriously struggle with this, we must understanding as much as possible why people drive, the fact that we have very dispersed populations, compared to other countries, means people must drive, in order to survive. forcing people into alternatives such as public transport simply wont work for many of these people, as these options simply arent available in many areas, or what is available, just simply isnt viable, it would mean adding considerable time, to an already over subscribed timetable. its critical that 'offsets' are put in place along side such polices, noting that many parts of these polices are critically needed, and are actually really good. we need to offer alternatives to people, in regards giving back some of their time, particularly if they are forced to change due to these new polices and approaches, we should also be including the reduction of the working week, without a reduction in pay and conditions. people are sometimes forced to drive due to these facts, i.e. in order to save time, as the alternatives, if they even exist, are just too time consuming, we cant keep just pushing this sh1t onto people, they ll eventually just crack! alternatives such as working from home, need to be fully supported, in conjunction with these polices.....

we have the bloody ideas, we ve even tried some of them during covid, and some even worked, and worked well!

the only issue with increasing road infrastructure, generally means, increased road traffic, no easy solution there!

again, i understand the reasoning for tolling, but i truly have a major issue with it for pure profiteering... but the cynic in us all can just see these measures are simply trying to force people over the toll, and thats just gonna p1ss people off even more, and rightfully so, people simply cant take anymore, they simply dont have the money to do so!

but again, for some, there simply isnt a viable alternative, and theres no future guarantees in place for such, many simply will be forced to change, which will more than likely increase their costs of living!

i appreciate such plans, but they always seem to be very lacking, there doesnt ever seem to be holistic thinking occurring along side them, in conjunction with.....

but again, viability has multiple meanings, the 'alternatives' in many cases would mean an increase in costs, and not just financial costs, but actual time costs. i.e. the alternatives in many cases means more time out of peoples already stretched timetables, we cant keep just giving these folks the big f you!

...but are all journey makers living and working within 15 mins? and cycling in irish weather, in the middle of winter, carrying the kids, everyone's belongings, and possible the shopping to, would, i suspect, become and bit too much after a while!

oh i truly understand the potential and intended consequences, but what about the unintended ones, as mentioned?

agree, but where are ideas like this facilitated within this plan?

This is the park and ride option specified in the plan. I think it would be great. It also mentions using Tramore Bus Station as a parking location and expanding the tramore bus service to every 10 minutes to function as a semi park and ride.

This plan totally revolves around getting more car users to use the toll bridge.

With so many travelling from Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow & Tipperary to Waterford it will be a bonanza for them!

I hope with so many new bus routes there will be drivers to drive them! Shortages in that industry also!

That’s true, believe that the population increase could be as high as 50%. And yes, got to plan alright. However, in Waterford I would argue that there is too much through traffic also.

Point is still valid though. Plan for all aspects of population growth. Not just status quo maintaining aspects. Waterford needs a full university, like for like funding for health care, a full IDA regional director etc etc. Not just, give them bus lanes, while Micheál Martin is sending €200 million to UCC while WIT is still waiting over 10 years for an Engineering building.