Madam, - So Luas is to cross the M50/Red Cow roundabout via level crossings (The Irish Times, May 29th). Tens of thousands of miles of driving abroad have convinced me that the kind of road "design" inflicted on Irish taxpayers is just unthinkable elsewhere.
Through traffic on the busiest feeder road in and out of the capital is forced through a roundabout, complete with traffic lights, linking it with the busiest bypass road. As if this situation did not already need to be sorted out immediately, now a railway crossing is to be installed at road level.
In addition, there will be an even greater volume of non-local heavy goods traffic avoiding the M50 disaster area on crumbling secondary roads, with congestion, pollution and maintenance costs to match. Avoidable chaos on such a scale really is awe-inspiring.
I would like to see a properly-funded independent statutory body whose sole function would be to monitor and recommend international (not just UK and US) best practice in all aspects of public administration. In business there is a precedent for this in the International Standards Organisation.
The modest outlay required would almost certainly pay for itself many times over, but such an idea could surely never be contemplated by the blinkered cheese-parers and masterly exponents of the false economy whom we employ to spend our money. - Yours, etc.,
CHARLES BAGWELL, Millbrook, Straffan, Co Kildare.