Sir, - In his letter, Mr Niall Andrews MEP showed an extraordinary level of ignorance of the Dublin Transportation Initiative Strategy. By way of an apology for the Minister for Public Enterprise's decision to postpone the Luas project, he seemed to be suggesting that a delay is needed to allow time to make progress on other traffic and transport issues.
What Mr Andrews has failed to grasp is that the whole basis of the strategy is that all proposed measures are part of an integrated plan and must, to be successful, progress in tandem. When the strategy was first launched, some years back, it was described as a "seamless garment" which precluded "cherry picking" of the politically neutral measures. Succumbing to Luas objectors now is to completely undermine the value of the investment currently being made in other aspects of the plan. These include completion of the c-ring motorway, quality bus corridors, and many other traffic management and traffic restraint measures.
I would draw Mr Andrews's attention to the following facts: 1 The Dublin Transport Office recently estimated the economic costs of Dublin traffic congestion at £500 million annually. This excludes any attempt to calculate the environmental costs. 2 This year, for the first time, toxic car air emissions exceeded EU acceptable levels. This, note, was not just the recommended limit, but the acceptable limit. 3 The result of recent traffic modelling studies by the Dublin Transport Office show that, even with the massive infrastructural investment (£650 million to 1999), including Luas, there will still be a 12.5 percent increase in car trips in Dublin by 2006.
Clearly, this is a crisis situation. Such is the urgency of the situation, both for Dublin city and for its inhabitants, that not only must Luas get the go-ahead but there must be an immediate investment in the Dublin bus fleet to enable it to cope with existing and future demand. City-centre traders have far more to fear from inaction on public transport than they have from the temporary disruption of Luas construction. - Yours etc., Olivia Mitchell TD, Dail Eireann,
Dublin 2.