Sir, - My Ranelagh neighbour Enid O'Dowd (August 27th) has put her finger on a key issue. Now that car traffic in central Dublin has been dispersed, it should be feasible to develop more north-south cross-city bus routes, using more of the bridges, and also east-west routes, interfacing with the DART, both types of route connecting eventually with Luas. The key to user-friendly mobility is easy interconnection of mapped routes. I addressed this question in 1991 with an essay which won a prize from the Irish Planning Institute; I have recently made this available on the Internet at www.iol.ie/~rjtechne/regpol/dublin91.htm.
With this paper I give a possible mesh-like map of an express bus/rail system, using large vehicles on main roads, interconnecting various actual and potential "urban villages". Small-vehicle mini-radial systems could service the more prominent "village" centres.
We used to have the no. 12 route, which was cross-city and useful. It was, however, amalgamated with the 13, which became unreliable due to traffic and complex routing through narrow streets. Then they chopped the moribund 13 into 13A and 13B, separate routes for the north and south city. Both these are sub-viable, and they are trying to get rid of them.
What they might have done was to upgrade the 12, perhaps along the lines of my 1991 express mesh scheme, and redevelop separately the 13, with a small vehicle, as part of a local mini-radial system. - Yours, etc.,
Dr ROY JOHNSTON, Belgrave Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.