Sir, It was ironic to see that Garret Fitzgerald's second article on the proposed Dublin LRT was placed alongside John Water's piece headlined "Isolation of dismal economists now almost complete." Garret seems on the ball at juggling the transport figures, but I wonder if, in all his arguments, he has lost sight of a bigger truth which cost benefit analysis cannot provide.
He is right when he points out that the real issue in urban transport planning is the allocation of scarce road space. However, to argue against an over ground LRT system on the basis that it would hinder motorised traffic seems to bring us back to the flawed logic that lead to the scrapping of our tram system in the first place.
Garret advocates an untried road pricing technology, along with an underground light rail system to keep the city centre free for traffic flows. Rather than leaving us to the whims of the market system, our local authorities have for once gone through four years of proper planning to come up with the Dublin Transport Initiative.
One of its central recommendations was the building of an over ground light rail system. To throw this proposal out and start again would only give us five more years of the auto centric dark ages that "Garret the Good" unfortunately helped to create. Yours, Dartry Park, Dublin 6.