Sir, - The recent and belated admission by CIE and the Dublin Transportation Office that trams cannot provide sufficient passenger capacity on the Sandyford airport route is welcome (Garret FitzGerald, Opinion, March 18th). It is now almost inevitable that the Government will soon decide to endorse the provision of a metro service on this route, as advocated several years ago by Garret FitzGerald.
The case of the Tallaght service is most interesting. Like the Sandyford-airport proposal, the Luas tram system for Tallaght has grossly insufficient passenger capacity. In addition, the chosen Luas route meanders to such an extent that it doubles the journey time to the city centre, while managing to reduce the served population catchment. The fact that some public money has been spent on this bad project is not a good reason for completing it; rather it is a signal to stop this spending immediately. In my view, CIE should now be instructed not to incur any further financial commitments for Luas. Instead, competent international firms should be invited to tender for the design, provision and operation of a metro service from Sandyford to the airport and from the city centre to Tallaght. - Yours, etc.,
Frances Ward, Templeogue, Dublin 6w.