Sir, - I would like to support Dr FitzGerald's well researched articles and his arguments that the present LUAS proposals; would be a waste of money. When a visiting EU head of state wants to cross the city in a hurry for lunch at Iveagh House, he is surrounded by a cavalcade of motorbikes and sirens, and he arrives in speed.
It is efficient for him, but for other road users it is disruptive. Similarly, the proposed LUAS streetcars might be efficient for their passengers, but at five minute frequencies in both directions they would be hyperdisruptive for other road users.
There is a difference between rapid rail transit and light rail transit (LRT). Rapid rail travels at up to 80 mph and has stations about one km apart. This should be used from satellite towns and suburbs along each of the closed railway lines and canal routes - Bray to Harcourt Street, Maynooth to Broadstone, Tallaght to the old Grand Canal basin off James's Street etc.
It should also be used on the route between Clondalkin and Heuston, and Ballymun might connect with the little used route from Heuston under the Phoenix Park and linking around to Connolly. The Dart is a rapid rail system.
Light rail transit system (LRT) travels at up to 25 mph, with more frequent stops. Every rapid rail terminus should be interconnected by LRT. As Dr FitzGerald argues, it is essential that this system be segregated from existing traffic; it must travel either below or above it.
I make two proposals concerning the LRT; firstly, that for most LRT connections a monorail system be used. The oldest in use is that in the German town of Wuppertal (since 1901). Since the Montreal Expo in 1967 monorails have become very sophisticated, astride simple concrete beams on widely spaced uprights, and are the great symbol of the metropolis of the future.
Imagine travelling from Harcourt Street Station down the Green and Grafton Street, Suffolk Street, across Dame Street, through Temple Bar, across the Liffey at Capel Street Bridge, through the Markets and up to the Broadstone. The line could then link to Connolly and back to Harcourt Street. Monorails are economical in capital cost, and low in disruption.
My second proposal is that tunnels be bored beneath the Liffey between Tara Street Station and Heuston. The land is in the public domain and there are no buildings overhead. (If found feasible, the dock relief tunnels might travel this route too, connecting via Con Colbert Road to the Western Parkway, and taking worry from the people of Marino.)
The proposed LRT route from Tallaght would be too slow, and people would use private cars in preference. Rapid rail should come at least as far as James's Street, and then connect to the LRT system. - Yours etc
Hazel Avenue,
Kilmacud,
Co Dublin.