Madam, - Congratulations to Fintan O'Toole (Nov 8th) and this paper for being the first to reveal the truth behind the Government's so-called transport policy.
There can be no doubt that what lies behind the reluctance to grasp the problem of the country's and especially the capital's transport woes is their deep reluctance to restrict the use of cars. And no wonder.
If you consider who successive members of the Cabinet tend to rub shoulders with and receive party contributions from, who could blame them for thinking that not allowing the citizens of this country to sit in their four-wheel pride and joys could be a potential vote loser?
Mr Cullen spoke on Prime Time recently about providing choice for Dublin commuters. Unless he plans either to widen every road in Dublin for bus lanes or provide every commuter with access to other forms of public transport, and neither of these options is currently planned, the only way to provide an effective alternative to the car is to give priority to buses on a much extended service network.
Instead, the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues have opted to spend their way out of their dilemma by spending ever more precious taxpayers' money on more roads and highly expensive transport systems which will require ongoing subsidies which future generations will be burdened with.
The proposal to build yet another Dublin Orbital will simply feed traffic on to an already over-burdened road system.
It's good to see that the old values of this country have not been lost.
Given a choice between spending money on such useless things as new classrooms, European language education and proper support for the sick, priority has been given to the critical areas of drinking and driving. - Yours, etc,
TONY BOND, Newcastle, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - The need for cost benefit analysis on the Western Rail Corridor, mentioned by Garret FitzGerald recently and referred to by Liam Power (letters Nov 9th), in particular for capital-intensive projects such as rail, is questionable.
We need less concentration on whether a project wipes its face commercially.
Cost benefit analysis can quickly kill off a lot of infrastructure projects, and be used as an excuse to apply PPP policies.
Railways and railway companies should not be measured on how much money they make or lose, but on how efficiently they move people and products and the level of service they provide.
Railways are an enabler - they enable people to go about their daily business, which then generates wealth.
If the railways lose money moving people efficiently, then so what?
They will have achieved their objective of enabling people to live, work and enjoy life more efficiently. Who can put a cost benefit on that?
The same applies very much to roads. Is the M50 a success?
The application of cost benefit analysis thinking to this project and the involvement of PPP policies has led to the national disgrace of the West Link toll bridge.
The M50 is not doing its job correctly - to allow the easy flow of traffic around Dublin - because the private sector is not operating the motorway efficiently.
If real cost benefit analysis thinking had been applied to this project, the Government would have built the bridge itself and allowed the traffic to flow.
The enablement of free-flowing traffic on the M50 would have generated wealth in itself but a complete lack of vision continues to bring the country's key arterial route to a grinding halt every day.
Vision? They can't see beyond the next toll gate. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN QUINN, Enniscrone Co Sligo.