Tipperary County Council is assessing options for the provision of bus shelters in a North Tipperary town.
Councillor Fiona Bonfield brought a Notice of Motion to this month’s meeting of Nenagh MD, calling for the installation of a bus shelter in Newport Town.
This comes following increased bus services and more people opting to travel by public transport to nearby towns and cities.
Cllr. Bonfield says students in particular could benefit from having a shelter at bus stop locations.
“Newport is so near UL and LIT, so students are actually using it a lot in town to travel. In today’s society, students are working a lot as well, so it suits them that they can have public transport available in the town so that they can get in and out of work or college, which varies at different times during the day. It’s been widely used. Unfortunately, we have no bus shelters, and I think it would be very welcome in the town if we could get them on board.”
A more detailed proposal with design will be discussed before a future meeting of the MD, and if approved by members, a grant application will be forwarded to the NTA to fund the bus stop layout and associated bus shelters.
The installation of NTA-compliant bus stops for a shelter would result in the loss of some car parking spaces.
This is something Cllr. Bonfield says shouldn’t impact anyone.
“We possibly would look at losing a few car-parking spaces in the town, but sure, look, we’ll have a meeting on that and we can go from there. I honestly don’t think that will be a major issue. We have enough space; we have a public car park anyway which is never full. It’s just a matter of people coming on board and utilising the public car-park more and not parking on the main street.”
