In a column for the Irish Independent, a veteran driver argues that newly extended footpaths on Markievicz Road in Sligo make passenger drop-offs impossible for large vehicles.
Brian Kerrigan, a coach driver from Urlingford in County Kilkenny, writes that he will remove Sligo from his tour itineraries for 2027. He says that recent footpath extension works leave zero space for visiting tour coaches to pull up safely.
Kerrigan says that he arrived in the city recently while driving a 14.3-metre coach.
He took his usual route from the bypass along Wine Street over Hyde Bridge and into Markievicz Road.
“I was so surprised to see the way the footpath has been extended out onto the roadway,” Kerrigan told the Irish Independent.
The driver encountered a Local Link coach and a Bus Éireann route 458 coach parked up upon rounding the corner. His vehicle’s length prevented him from dropping off passengers, forcing him to leave Sligo entirely.
“What on earth were the city engineers thinking they were achieving by extending the footpath and reducing the bus spaces,” Kerrigan writes in his column.
He points out that the extended path covers the exact area where local buses used to stop.
Local buses now have to pull up further along the road. This leaves less space overall for visiting tour coaches.
A new bus shelter sits on the upgraded stretch of road, but buses cannot physically stop in front of it.
“This must be the only bus shelter in Europe where a bus cannot stop in front of it,” he writes. He claims that everything was previously running smoothly for the coach industry in Sligo, boasting plenty of drop-off space and an excellent coach park.