Greenway or the highway?

I’ve just spent 2 days walking the Waterford Greenway. This links Waterford and Dungarvan and is about 46 km long. When rail services closed in 1982, Irish Rail allowed the line deteriorate rather than develop alternative traffic on it. As a consequence it became an eyesore.

A number of years ago Waterford County Council  The route has been preserved and brings walkers and cyclists on a meandering route through rural Waterford as you snake you way to Waterford.

decided to get their hands on the line so as to develop it as a piece of tourist infrastructure. I’ve got to admit that they’re on a winner.

So this week end  just gone we stretched our legs on 2 sections, one close to Dugarvan and another near Kilmacthomas.  So here’s the low down. The project connects 2 large population centres with critical mass to sustain the route. There was no end of bikes and walkers in the vicinity of Dungarvan or Ballyvoile where motorists can park. Elsewhere along the route at Kilmacthomas it was quieter. Many people, especially with

children seem to use the route for a mile or two close to where you can park the car. Accessibility to the route is key. The attractive countryside is a huge plus. The tunnel at Ballyvoile is a magnet for kids, decked out as it is Halloween with all sorts of things that go bump in the night.

However it needs better management to separate pedestrians from cyclists in the tunnel where cyclists dismount and after a few yards often remount and off they go. The tunnel had over 100 people inside it, many with young kids attracted in by spooky Halloween images.  In the dark it can be more than scary with the risk of you going bump in the night off a bike.  Build and they will come but manage and they’ll come back

We stopped off after walking 9km for a cuppa at Durrow in a bar that was doing a roaring trade. The owner tells me that their customers come from everywhere you can think off. His bar has morphed into a cafe, bicycle hire business as well as providing a wee stop for the small ones. The car park was overflowing on the bright Autumnal morning that we were there.

As we rambled back towards town we met up with teenagers doing their Gaisce award. As I stopped to turn to look at a field filled with rare curlew a cyclist shot by at about 15MPH missing me by a foot at best. Cyclists on this greenway can put some pedestrians at risk.  The greenway is a strip of tarmac about 2 meters wide and no more. The mix of different types of users can at busy times be a bit off putting.

Are there lessons for Wexford? The county council proposes to build a greenway beside the Rosslare Waterford line. I’m not so sure that the line is as scenic neither is the critical mass and tourist or attractions and infrastructure of accommodation and pubs along the route. It is not just a case of build the greenway and people arrive. The bar I mentioned earlier had put in place railing to stop kids running out on the road and spent on the public area to facilitate customers. Unless tourists can rely that their expectations can be met, they won’t come. Moreover the most attractive part of the route which runs along the Suir estuary will be retained as a railway to Wateford Port.

 Will walkers and cyclists accept the loss of that amenity? The Barrow Bridge will pose management issues as it remains a working bridge which swings open to allow shipping move up to New Ross.

Any decision to upgrade Rosslare to Tier 1port will require consideration of access for rail and that possibility exists.  Any such decision would exclude under railway safety the sharing of the line with cyclists or pedestrians. Before a bob is invested it would be worth prioritising how we visualise Rosslare into the future.

What works in Waterford may not work in Wexford, How many cyclists would turn up on a windy day in November to cycle from Duncormick to Ballycullane? That remains to be seen.

Telling the passengers where to get off!

Margaret Thatcher used to say that the definition of failure was a man in his 30's taking a bus.  The news that Bus Eireann are planning to reduce Expressway services in Wexford shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone. Bus Eireann run a route 5 to Waterford from Dublin along the N25/N30/N80/N81.  Not the most direct route and certainly not the fastest.  But one that connects a lot of villages with big towns. The route doesn’t hit dual carriage way until it reaches Tallaght.  By comparison you can travel from Waterford to Dublin on the M9 in about 2 hours comfortably.  It’s a no brainer if you want to go from Dublin to Waterford by Bus Eireann as to which route you’d take.  Route 5 is for the axe.

Many local communities are fearful of the impact of downgrading of service and ending of dropping off points.   Bus Eireann claim that the Expressway service does not receive a subvention and as a consequence must be profitable.  As a consequence they see routes terminating at Dublin Airport and linking to big urban areas the future for their fleet investment.  Elderly passengers on bus passes don’t seem to rate with the boys in Broadstone.  They are feeling the raw heat of competition from the private sector on their neck.

It’s very hard to feel sympathy for Bus Eireann.  For years the CIE group has gone to the government with a begging bowl looking to be bailed out when in fact they could have look at how to configure services to attract passengers.  The presumption that everyone wants to go to or from Dublin is wrong.  It’s possible with great time delays to go from Bunclody to Wexford return by bus. It takes almost 2 hours unless you want to take the only direct bus that departs at 19.50 and arrives at 20.40 but few appointments in Wexford are this late!  On the other hand if you want to go from Camolin to New Ross it’ll take as long as 3 hours in the morning although about an hour later in the day.  In both cases the journey is about 30 miles.  Clearly for a service branded “Expressway” connecting passengers for destinations other than Dublin isn’t high up the agenda.

Simply by interconnecting services in Wexford passenger numbers using these services could be higher.  Simply by listening to councils, numbers could be higher too.  As a councillor I asked Bus Eireann to run a service between Wexford and Carlow.  Both big towns with 20,000 passengers each, connected by a good road with the potential to interchange bus passengers for Kilkenny.  Carlow IT has a Wexford campus with plenty of students and a market. Sadly I was wasting my time.

At least there is the potential for another operator to tender for the route.  Follow the N81 to Dublin and you come to Tallaght with its IT, Square Shopping Complex and Hospital.  There is a market heading to this side of Dublin from Co Wexford and Carlow. So why did Bus Eireann fail?

That’s for the National Transport Authority to decide.  Any change in service must get the approval of the authority.  There needs to be a business case to reduce services, the NTA will have to listen to the case put to retain the service.  In that case Bus Eireann’s suggestion that it will end the service is conjecture if Wexford County Council want to fight the decision by putting the business case to retain and interconnect the counties services.

It’ll be the first test of council’s role in economic development.   

University of the South East's uphill journey to a higher level

A few weeks ago was closing date for completion of the CAO form.  It’s hard to think that once more the annual points race competitors are once more limbering up on the starting blocks. Already the mocks are on, After the mid term break the class of 2015 have just 10 more weeks left in school, sooner than they think it’ll be time to move on. But where?

Firstly second level school is no  Which is just as well as Wexford is about 90 miles from the nearest university campus.  The region’s IT’s in Waterford and Carlow are within easier reach.  Time was when Waterford IT was seen as the prime RTC, above all other RTC’s in the country.

t all about going on to third level or indeed university.

So as to acknowledge the status of Waterford RTC and to encourage it upward, Labour’s first Education Minister Niamh Breathnach had the college elevated to the status of Institute of Technology.  At the time Waterford RTC had student numbers on a par with Maynooth College.  It looked that it wouldn’t be long before the South East could have a university just as the Mid West had shortly before that got its own university at Limerick.

But under Fianna Fail, Waterford languished.  In the meantime the process of designating a university required international verification.  The nature of the economy evolved and skills needed changed also.

Labour has always said that there was a need to have a modern university based across the region on split campuses at Carlow, Waterford and Wexford.  Since 2011 when Labour once more held  the Ministry of Education,  this proposal along with 3 others from DIT, Munster and the BMW region for technical university status have been progressing towards presentation towards an international evaluation.

However the South East bid is significantly behind the others.  Chief reason is the failure of both college boards to agree a joint approach. An official has been appointed to knock heads together, however he cannot micromanage everything and forever.

The problem is that while 20 years ago the South East would have been a racing certainty for university status, this is no longer the situation.  Which is a huge pity. Often the electorate like to blame politicians for failings.  In this case it may be the ambitions of college dons that may undermine the potential of the region.  And it’s a shame, because there is a huge tradition of engineering, technology and  science in the region.  The skill base is still there but it needs to be enhanced and upgraded.  If other regions steal a march on us, what next? Who will be blame then?