Kildare commuter woe at  bus route cuts

"There are always six or seven people here in the morning," a waiting early bus passenger in Kilcullen commented last week. But that's apparently not enough for JJ Kavanagh to keep their 717 service running through the expanding Kildare town.

Or through Athy and Naas and five other stops between Kilkenny and Red Cow Dublin which have been dropped from the route as from Monday 7 April.

The move means there's no longer a direct early bus service from Kilcullen to Dublin Airport as the 717 3.15am through the town is also axed.

"Kilcullen has one of the worst public transport services," another disgruntled passenger said last Friday, the final weekday run of the Kavanagh service through the town, while another woman said the news was going to make an already difficult situation for her even more awkward.

For Patrick, who uses the 6.50am 717 every morning when his coffee shop roster in Naas requires, the cessation is also going to cause him problems.

"I have to be in before 8am, and that's the only viable one for me, especially at weekends."

There's a 7.10am bus to Naas as weekday option for him, but not on Saturdays and Sundays.

JJ Kavanagh say, while realising 'that the changes may be disruptive to some', they are making them to 'deliver a faster, more consistent and altogether more extra-ordinary journey for the vast majority of our passengers'.

In a statement about 'exciting changes' to the route and 'optimising our network' the company said a review of service performance showed that 'certain bus stops had significantly low passenger numbers, making it difficult to justify their continued operation'.

Locals took to social media last week to express their annoyance at the latest cut: ‘Terrible news, the public transport is so bad from Athy and Kilcullen.’ Said one. Another added: "Dreadful news, my niece works in Dublin and now has to go to Newbridge to get a train to work."

One commenter opined: "A first world country with a third world bus service."

Since 2011, bus services through Kilcullen have been severely cut back by both private operators and Bus Eireann.

This was despite commitments given in 2009 by both groups that services through Kilcullen would be retained after the opening of further sections of the M9 motorway.

In 2015 a 'Save our Buses' campaign was set up after service cutbacks affecting Castledermot, Castlecomer, Athy and Kilcullen.

At one public meeting the bosses of Bus Eireann and the National Transport Authority were told bluntly that they were effectively 'abandoning' rural Ireland. There was no representative there from JJ Kavanagh, the other primary, and private operator on the affected routes.

In 2017, JJ Kavanagh made further changes to their schedules which meant that one morning and two evening services bypassed Kilcullen and other villages between Kilkenny and Dublin.

In their most recent timetable for the 717, just three of the 10 times a day run from Clonmel to Dublin Airport serviced stops between Kilkenny and Naas.

JJ Kavanagh exited the 129 route between Kilcullen and Newbridge in July 2022 in a series of post-Covid cutbacks due to 'low patronage' and the cessation of a temporary Covid-measure subsidy.

After a temporary service for more than a year a permanent Dunlavin-Newbridge was established under the Connecting Ireland Rural Mobility Plan.