Bus issues in South Roscommon linked to Athlone roadworks

By David Flynn

A meeting is proposed to take place between Athlone and Roscommon councillors and Bus Éireann, to discuss the way the Athlone town bus service is operating on the Roscommon side of the town.

Cathaoirleach of Athlone municipal district Cllr John Keogh suggested that there is a problem connected to ongoing Athlone roadworks.

Cllr John Naughten asked about the status of the proposed meeting during the July Athlone municipal district meeting, and said that there are concerns over the way Bus Éireann is operating in South Roscommon areas.

“It would be good to see if there can be improvements and extension of services in some areas,” he said.

The Cathoirleach said that he has made contact with the Mayor of Athlone in relation to the issues, and he has attempted to contact the Bus Éireann representative in relation to the issues.

He said that he also raised the issues in the previous week at a meeting of the Advisory Implementation Group (in respect of the economic development strategy for Athlone Monksland/Bealnamulla region).

“There is a significant issue about the frequency of the bus service and perhaps we could work with Athlone and the road layout, and that was raised with Barry Kehoe of Westmeath County Council and he wasn’t aware of the issues, but he was going checking it out and see what was the cause of the issue with the bus service,” said Cllr Keogh.

“That’s the current state of play.”

He said that there was to have been a meeting with elected representatives from Westmeath and Roscommon on July 23, but it wasn’t possible, because of unavailability on both sides.

“There is a proposal that it will take place in September and in the meantime I will endeavor to make contact with the representative of Bus Éireann to discuss what’s causing the problem.

“I suspect the roadworks in Athlone have been a source of the problem, and I suspect that it’s not a problem that it will go away by the conclusion of the roadworks because there is significant traffic delays taking place because of the layout of the town centre.

“That’s something that was relayed to Mr Kehoe and to see how we would address that because it’s a long term problem,” said the Cathaoirleach.

Cllr Naughten said that the traffic was an issue, but that the buses should still be able to run in a timely fashion.

“There does seem to be very significant delays on an ongoing basis, and there is an issue with buses coming from town and it’s something we need to discuss,” he said.