Madam, - As a bus driver with 10 years' experience, please excuse me if I don't share John Newman's enthusiasm on how to deliver a 21st-century bus service from being "stuck in traffic" (June 18th).
Firstly, cross-city bus routes serve working people who may live on one side of the city but may work inside the canals on the other side of the river.
Secondly, he mentions some routes (eg 103, 104) as serving a "tiny percentage of commuters". These commuters use wheelchairs and travel to the the Central Remedial Clinic and the Irish Wheelchair Association. These may indeed be a tiny percentage, but we are happy to serve them.
Finally, Mr Newman may believe it "utterly preposterous that our liquor-licensing laws could have been relaxed a few years ago to 12:30am at weekends while Dublin Bus drivers are at home, and probably in bed". The Nitelink and early morning buses (5.15 am in some cases) serve Dublin as it stands, and in time he will get a 24-hour service.
But I would much prefer that my ambition to raise my family wasn't subservient to alcohol or a 24-hour city. - Yours, etc,
OWEN O'SULLIVAN, Maryfield Drive, Artane, Dublin 5.
Madam, - John Newman's letter prompts me to write on a subject close to my heart. We live in an age when we are urged to use public transport, when more and more people live close to the city centre and when we told we must never drink and drive.
The Nitelink (I hate the Americanism - but that is another matter), takes revellers who have come into the city from the outskirts back to the outskirts. What, however, about the city-dwellers who have spent the evening in the outskirts? For some bizarre reason Nitelink buses only carry passengers out of the city, then return empty to collect more people who want to leave the city centre. I should like to know who devised this policy and what exactly is the reason for allowing empty buses to travel the streets at night ignoring would-be passengers. - Yours, etc,
IAN KAVANAGH, Suir Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8.