After 19 years of complaints that Galway’s annual wintertime Park and Ride service only serves the eastern city, plans are finally being drawn up for the west side – but after this Christmas.
The National Transport Agency has confirmed that it will lodge a planning application for a small carpark and bus terminal next to Cappagh Park in Knocknacarra in the first quarter of 2025.
An NTA spokesman said the project is currently at “preliminary design” stage, and the facility will be located “next to Knockanacarra football club”. In 2023, the minister for Transport Eamon Ryan told the Oireachtas that a Park and Ride site was earmarked for the “R336 Barna corridor” at the junction of Cappagh Road and the Western Distributor Road.
Last week, as the deadline expired for bus companies to submit tenders to run annual park and ride services beginning December 6 from Galway Racecourse to the city centre, Councillor John Connolly (FF ) expressed disappointment that no corresponding service is available for the West of the City.
“I think this is the 19th year that such a service will be provided for commuters coming from east of the city, and we still have not been able to develop an equivalent service from the west. Some options have been put forward previously, but the tender documents published this year highlight again that the west of the city will not have a park and ride service.”
An NTA spokesman said the agency has “longer term” plans for Park and Ride facilities on the N59 Moycullen Road and Headford Road, but that “its delivery is fully dependent on bus priority possibilities into the future,” and that it is not looking at Galway Airport as a possible, separate location.
Galway West TD Catherine Connolly (Ind ) previously told the Advertiser that a west Galway city Park and Ride was planned 19 years ago, and she despairs at the lack of action: “This was in the city development plan almost 20 years ago when I was a city councillor. Park and Ride is just one part, but integral, to the solution to traffic congestion in Galway city.” Connolly told Transport Minister Ryan that in the Dáil that her problem with the proposed Galway outer city bypass is the “failure to do other, parallel changes to Galway city [transport] projects which should have been done.”
A planned 550-space Park and Ride at the Oranmore exit off the M6 motorway is also at a “preliminary design stage,” and will be located at the N6’s junction 19. “This Park and Ride requires the provision of bus priority along the N6 on the approach to the Coolagh Roundabout, and we are engaging with [Transport Infrastructure Ireland] to facilitate its delivery,” said a spokesman.
The spokesman did not confirm proposals for a Park and Ride link to Oranmore train station, but that the NTA recommended Galway County Council and Iarnród Éireann increase car parking from 140 to 280 spaces.
An NTA spokesman said its complete Park and Ride strategy for Galway city has been finalised since 2022, and that it aims to publish it online before the end of this year.
