Sir, – Jonathon Sutton (Letters, February 25th) is of course correct to point out that there is little need for a significant redevelopment of the Luas lines as part of the plans for the new metro. Even if his description of commuting daily by Luas as "suffocating" is apt, the reality is that it functions at least tolerably well. As a result, any plan to drastically limit the service as it is partially refashioned into an underground rail system will obviously be met with opposition, because, apart from modest capacity increases, the people in the surrounding area will be left with what is in essence the same public transport service thereafter.
People are much more likely to be sympathetic to significant developments of public transport infrastructure if they actually add something new to justify the disruption occasioned by their construction, rather than just refashioning something that is already there.
Because of this, any underground train service should seek to create links between the city centre and areas of the city which do not currently enjoy accessible and frequent rail transport.
Indeed, inhabitants of such parts of the city have frequently voiced this argument on these pages since the plans for the metro were first announced. Once there are effective links between different high-frequency transport services, there is no need to amalgamate them or for one to swallow up the other. – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER
McMAHON,
Oxford,
United Kingdom.