Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan will name 67 new bus routes linking rural towns and villages on Friday.
Mr Ryan will be in Co Offaly with the National Transport Authority for the announcement and said the new routes are part of Connecting Ireland 2023′s rural mobility programme.
Connecting Ireland is a five-year plan to provide better connections between villages and towns by linking them with an enhanced regional public transport network which connects to cities and regional centres.
This year just €240 million has been allocated to the construction of new national roads with only €70 million for regional and local road improvement schemes. Almost €900 million has been allocated to public transport investment.
Under the Connecting Ireland plan more than 70 per cent of those living outside of the Republic’s cities would have access to a public transport service that provides at least three return trips each weekday to a nearby town.
Mr Ryan said the routes are “closing the gap where there is nothing in many instances”. Speaking at the Oireachtas Committee on Transport last week Mr Ryan said the development of such connectivity “should be our top priority and it is”.
In addition to enhancing rural mobility and enabling employment, the new services are aimed at reducing demand for private transport in rural areas.
Mr Ryan said new routes were being added to the network of rural public transport “week by week” and he said “there will in the next two to three years, be a switch in investment towards public transport as compared with roads investment”.
He told the Committee the Government was committed to a 2:1 ratio in favour of spending on new public transport projects. “The reality is there are certain critical public transport projects, such as Cork metropolitan rail, BusConnects in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick, Waterford railway station being moved, DART+ heading out towards Maynooth in the West and the metro. There is a list as long as your arm of vital public transport projects which have not got sufficient funding in the past ten to 20 years”, he said.
This year will also see the planned introduction of BusConnects orbital routes in south Dublin while design and consultation will continue on BusConnects for regional cities.
“That investment will tend towards more public transport as compared to roads. It is not that we will not be building the roads programme but we will have to prioritise” Mr Ryan said.
Transport sources said the Minister was keen to tackle the perception in rural Ireland that it had been let down by public transport planners, with little option but to drive a private car.
