Sir, - John Howard, whinges that mere homes are getting in the way of the completion of the Monkstown ring road (June 16th). He then, tries to convince us that this project would reduce traffic on Newtown Park by 7,700 vehicles a day, Newtown Park Avenue by 6,500, Stradbrook Road/Deans Grange Road by 9,000. This is piffle.
More roads create more traffic. Extra road space attracts previously suppressed demand for car use. This was evident from the opening of the airport section of the M50: more road space yet more delays, until people re adjusted their behaviour to suit the road space available.
Mr Howard suffers under the illusion that the rights of car drivers are superior to the rights of others. Householders must be evicted for his roads. Cyclists and pedestrians must be poisoned by his fumes. And children must be driven home from school and shut in their bedrooms drip feeding on TV, to avoid them going outside to be run down.
The solution is not to spend millions on new roads for the minority who can afford cars. It is to spend millions upgrading public transport for all, and, putting freight on trains, not lorries.
In all of his selfish rant (his are the "facts" anything he disagrees with are irrelevancies ) Mr Howard hits on one truth. He talks of "heavy transcontinental lorries thundering through ... roads that were designed for turn of the century traffic". He's right. Either we lose the traffic, or we lose the city. - Yours, etc.,
Usher's Island,
Dublin 8.