Sir, - I would like to take this opportunity to respond to some of the points made by your Environment Correspondent, Frank McDonald, on August 16th. Mr McDonald suggested that the real agenda of critics of the LUAS proposal was to ditch light rail altogether and to divert the money into building an Eastern By pass motorway. Let me say that this is not the agenda of the Progressive Democrats.
My party has consistently supported the provision of a rail rapid transit system for Dublin. The Dail record of the LUAS debate" will clearly show that not only do we support rapid rail, but that we specifically voiced our opposition to the construction of an Eastern By pass.
I have sought, on behalf of the Progressive Democrats, to highlight some of the problems that will result from constructing LUAS as presently proposed. Firstly, it will exacerbate traffic congestion in the city centre; secondly, there is no provision for a service to the north side of the city, and finally, there is no inter connection with the existing rapid transit system, DART.
One of our major failings in this country has been our inability to conduct objective evaluations of large scale capital investment projects. The choice facing Dublin is essentially between a fully on street system and one which runs underground in the city centre. Surely we can arrange for independent external consultants to carry out a comparative assessment of the capital costs and operating efficiency of each option.
This process will not be helped by the kind of emotive language employed by Frank McDonald and other proponents of the LUAS option. - Yours, etc.,
Dail Eireann,
Baile Atha Cliath 2.