Sir, - What a strange world we live in. Just as it began to seem that our town and city burghers throughout the land were awakening to the perils of the automobile culture, and were showing signs of joining those in city after city in Europe, contemplating measures to reduce traffic jams and pollution by restricting access and slowing down traffic on urban routes, Dun Laoghaire- Rathdown County Council seems set to buck the trend.
The Council has been advised to go ahead and build a fast new and unobstructed route free from the restraints of traffic calming, to link the estimable C-Ring (whose purpose is actually to deflect traffic from the urban centres) with Dun Laoghaire, by cutting through the heart of its southern suburbs. I refer to the Church Road Improvement Scheme Phase III. There is a logic of sorts in creating a link to the ferry-port - an "inter-regional" extension of the Welsh A5 - but the logic breaks down when the scheme is examined, for the fast route does not actually create a link; it is incomplete, will dump the speeding motorists and truck drivers at a roundabout near Sallynoggin still a mile or so from the port, and leave them to find their way through restricted urban streets, no doubt to the growing fury of the residents along whichever becomes the preferred "rat run". Traffic coming from the ferry will still have to negotiate the archaic road system in the centre of town before finding the appropriate exit. There is no integrated road traffic programme in the new town plan on view in the Town Hall; no indication at all as to how the currently growing traffic problems are to be managed let alone this extra traffic.
To achieve this link-road miracle of modern planning, the Council is to resuscitate a scheme first mooted over 30 years ago, which was not then considered important enough to swallow a large portion of the road budget but kept "on ice" until fairy godmother Europe came along with its giant funding windfalls. But in those days the love affair with the automobile was in its early days; now we can see the drawbacks as we all pay nominal homage to the environment and the qualities of life which make our country envied by less fortunate Europeans. These patently do not include fast heavy traffic with its pollution, noise and vibration, and its inevitable increment of road deaths. It is widely accepted now that more and better roads simply attract more and faster traffic.
Yet, remarkably enough, the good Councillors have been informed that a full investigation of the environmental impacts of the new development is not legally required. Never mind that the report ignores the requests of the local residents who have taken the trouble to make enquiries of environmental consultants, never mind that the proposed throughway severs the community, separating parishioners from their churches, children from their schools and housewives from their shops. The planners, from their rarified heights, can safely recommend the proposal. Seen through the eyes of a road engineer, no doubt, it makes sense to build a new road on the open space so providentially available; to the property developer perhaps less so and to the resident, none at all.
We can only hope that the same Councillors remember that they are democratically elected, will listen to the voices of their voters, and tell their road engineers to think again. - Yours etc,
Professor Chris Stillman.
Thomastown Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.