Sir, - Dr FitzGerald (May 7th) correctly identifies that an LRT to Dublin Airport will not be sufficient to meet the coinciding commuter rush and Airport passenger traffic during the evening peak. He wrongly concludes that 50 meter trams on the north/south line are the "only solution". In fact a solution has long been in the public domain in the DTI Final Report published in May 1994. This Report recommends a conventional rail link between Connolly Station and Dublin Airport in addition to the northbound LRT line. They asked that this be evaluated.
Dr FitzGerald is also correct in identifying environmental traffic cells as the primary reason for concluding that there will be virtually no general traffic benefit from placing the trams underground in the short stretch in the city centre and that the logic of the Government's recent decision is questionable.
It was not necessary for Dr FitzGerald to read the Atkins Report to discover this. The Final Report of the DTI (May 1994) under the sections on "Land Use Policies" and the "Better Use of Existing Resources" recommended environmental traffic cells management, now called ETC's. They are also incorporated in the Dublin City Draft Development Plan for 1998, widely available and on public display.
Dublin City Centre Business Association deplores the Government's failure to adopt the Atkins Report recommendation that onstreet Luas would cost less to build and operate, carry more passengers and in off-peak attract 50 per cent more passengers than the alternative proposal.
Minister O'Rourke's proposed extensions are not new. They were included in the DTI final report of 1994, which Government then accepted.
This Association calls on the Minister responsible for transport to order construction work to start on the surface Luas on both legs (Tallaght, Heuston, Smithfield, to O'Connell Street, and Dundrum to St. Stephen's Green) immediately. Some relief for 1999/2000 must be enacted now. - Yours, etc., Brian Goff,
Chairman, Dublin City Centre Business Association, Dawson Street, Dublin 2.