Madam, - I pose a question to Dubliners. How do the elderly and the partially disabled - or, indeed, the temporarily disabled - get around your city? Has no one looked at the interchange between different buses and between buses and the Luas, bearing these people in mind?
I visit relations in Dublin regularly and do my best to use public transport, for both ecological and economical reasons. My usual haunts are (a) Great George's Street, where I live close to a bus stop; (b) the IFSC; and (c) Grafton Street or Henry Street.
At office commuter times there is the 90A bus to and from the IFSC, going along the quays, and connecting quite well to buses up Great George's Street; but there are many times when commuters are in offices or at home.
So I thought the Luas was going to be the answer. What a hope! It's a jolly long walk from the Abbey stop down O'Connell Street to connecting stops.
Why are the bus stops, in general, so far apart? There must be a good half-kilometre between stops on the quays, and in Great George's Street. Don't other people find these distances trying?
And then there are the pedestrianised streets. All very well for the hale, but wearisome for the halt and lame. There don't seem to be cunning ways in from side streets. And the complexities of the one-way systems are such that the phrase "all around the houses" might have been invented to describe the taxi rides one needs.
I note that I see few elderly totterers (like me) in Dublin. Is this because Dubliners are in good foot health - or because they have given up the struggle? - Yours, etc.,
ANNE MARY JAYES, Gladsmuir Road, Archway, London N 19.