PHILIP HASSELL,
Sir, - May I congratulate Dublin City Council on the introduction of possibly the most Byzantine, complex and ridiculous traffic management system in the world. The system has the appearance of a project conducted by a final-year student as part of a degree in advanced mathematical modeling whereby each location on a map is assigned a code and algorithms are developed to find the most obscure route between them.
As with many academic projects this one will no doubt encounter problems on deployment into the real world. It is very interesting to note that I live beside R114, near to Junction 6 (purple) and my sister on R815 but of not much practical benefit unless I have taken the time to learn the 70 junction numbers and larger number of route numbers that I now need to navigate using the new system of signposts, colours and codes.
Dublin already has a set of identifiable areas such as Rathmines and Ballsbridge with which the majority of the population are already familiar. It is also a spurious argument that there is insufficient space on the signs for these intelligible locations. For example in Hong Kong, a bilingual region with Chinese and Roman script, there is a perfectly understandable road signage system based on neighborhood names for local traffic and peripheral areas for longer journeys that does not require a textbook to decode.
It is clear that Dublin requires a proper traffic management system to limit the number of vehicle journeys through the city, but should also be usable for both locals and visitors. A simple system whereby traffic would be directed along the inner-routes to places that they would recognise instantly without any mental gymnastics or reference to a map would be preferable to what we must now face. - Yours, etc.,
PHILIP HASSELL, Rathmines, Dublin 6
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Sir, - While examining the revised Dublin street map (August 22nd), I wondered how long it would take, starting at rush hour on a Friday, to complete one orbit of the "outer orbital road", and how many lunar orbits could be completed in the same period.
My dictionary defines an orbit as "the curved path followed by a heavenly body or spacecraft". Whatever about the heavenly body, I reckon a spacecraft would have great difficulty getting through the East Link Toll Bridge. However, from Monday, at least it will have plenty of room to land on O'Connell Street. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN O'DONNELL, Clonee, Co Meath