Sir, – Anthony Munnelly (Letters, March 29th) asks if our Dublin City Council chief executive considers it realistic to ask people to cycle into the city centre from Blanchardstown, Malahide and Monkstown?
According to Google maps, if you wanted to travel from Monkstown to O’Connell Bridge and arrive by 9am this morning, then by car, it would take anywhere from 24 to 65 minutes, versus an estimated 29 minutes by public transport or a cycling time of 34 minutes. From Blanchardstown, to drive would be 22 to 60 minutes, versus an estimated 46 to 50 minutes by public transport or a cycle time of 27 minutes. From Malahide, your journey by car would take from 28 to 70 minutes, versus a public transport time of 29 minutes, or an indeed significant cycle of 54 minutes.
With the data available, public transport or cycling looks to me to be far more reliable and realistic than driving for each of these journeys – so one might ask the question: is it realistic for investments in cycling and public transport to be disrupted by people driving into the city centre daily from Blanchardstown, Malahide and Monkstown? – Yours, etc,
MARIA O’BRIEN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.
Sir, – One “simple” way to limit traffic in our cities would be to designate days when cars with odd or even registration numbers could enter. This could substantially reduce the amount of traffic and parking space needed while enabling out-of-towners to plan their city-centre journeys and work trips. This could obviate the need to impose congestion charges and should be relatively simple to administer. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN FLANAGAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.