The Green Party are proposing free bus travel for under-9s. Speaking from the Green Party think-in this week, Senator Pauline O’Reilly said “It is all about tilting the balance of costs in favour of public transport.
“If a family are trying to figure out if they can manage with one car rather than two, or maybe in a city deciding they do not need a car at all, then we need to make that an easy choice,” she said.
“Or even on a single journey when balancing the cost of city parking against the bus fare, we need to ensure the bus journey is always cheaper. The Green Party is about helping people’s pockets while helping the planet and reducing traffic – and we also know that kids love buses.
She went on to say that in Government, the Greens have already cut public transport fares by 20% for adults and an additional 50% for young people aged 18 to 25, but those price cuts are only useful if the bus is on time and in Galway we need to invest in reliability and frequency.
“Those investments include the bus lanes in the Galway BusConnects plans and the higher frequency bus timetables planned for next year. Those investments are vital if Galway is to move to a first class public transport system.
”The Green Party think-in discussed a range of other policy issues as well as how the party can prepare for the elections in order to ensure that the next Dáil continues to have a strong voice for Green issue,” she concluded.
