Sir, – John FitzGerald appears to think that because we have a motorway network on which long-distance buses can run – albeit not in the northwest – that there is no need to expand the rail network, and especially not to the northwest (“The draft rail strategy is fun but most of it is fantasy”, Business, Opinion, August 18th). He misses the point that the majority of motorists will rarely abandon their cars for a bus. In reality, where good quality and frequent rail services are provided, motorists will make that modal shift. The other assumption that Prof FitzGerald makes in his article is that only the Greater Dublin Area deserves expanded public transport. The draft rail review does attempt to underpin population expansion in the west and northwest. An expanded rail network between the cities and towns all along the west coast and offering new cross-Border connections will provide the necessary foundations to bring jobs and much-needed new housing outside of the Pale. Who would not be in favour of that? Official Ireland and its road-based, Dublin-centric thinking has failed our young people who are emigrating again and has choked the Greater Dublin Area with traffic gridlock and overpriced housing. The rail review offers a way out of this mess.
Time to abandon the old orthodoxies and move forward. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD LOGUE,
Quigleys Point,
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Co Donegal.
