People Before Profit have proposed €1 public transport fares in Galway city for the month of December to tackle holiday traffic and reduce emissions.
The party has said that it has written to the National Transport Authority, Bus Eireann, and other bus companies involved in providing public transport to propose that for the Christmas shopping period Leap card fares be reduced to €1 on all Galway City bus routes.
Local PBP representative Joe Loughnane said that there are a number of reasons why they are putting this idea forward
“Firstly, serious traffic congestion is increasingly a problem in Galway City and is bound to peak during the Christmas shopping period, unless something is done to reduce the number of cars coming into the city and encourage people to switch to public transport.”
“Our local shops, restaurants, cafes, pubs, markets, cultural events etc will all benefit from people being more easily able to get into the city centre for the busy Christmas period.”
“Thanks to not having to pay for parking and fuel people will also have more money in their pockets to spend in our local businesses.”
Joe Loughnane said that €1 fares were trialed in Galway in July and that there was a significant jump in the number of people taking the bus during this time.
And getting more people to swap their cars for buses will help reduce carbon emissions and air pollution in the city he added.
In order to promote their campaign PBP have been holding stalls on Shop Street to talk to people about this proposal.
We had a stall in Galway today to promote our campaign for €1 public transport for December.
The feedback is clear. Working people want to do their bit to fight climate change.
We need to make that possible by making public transport cheap and easy to access for everyone! pic.twitter.com/qw5koOQpUv
— People Before Profit Galway (@pbpgalway) October 27, 2019
They say that people are interested in the plan in order to fight climate change and promote public transport.
