Madam, - May I congratulate you on finally airing the chronic traffic congestion at the M50's Westlink toll plaza (Editorial, August 15th).
Your uncritical acceptance of the National Toll Roads-funded report by DKM of the economics of the M50 is untypically naïve. No sensible person would expect National Toll Roads to publicise an expensive report that fails to promote its interests. DKM delivered. NTR published.
The National Tolls Roads/ DKM figures were mostly projections aimed at delivering a simple message: the Government is likely to pull in more revenues than NTR in the next 14 years. So the blame is meant to pass from the tolling giant to the State.
Perhaps NTR/DKM are right in their forecasts. Sadly, traffic projections on the M50 (particularly NTR's) have been woefully wide of the mark in the past, as your editorial rightly points out.
Conspicuously missing in either your editorial or the report is a plan for the crisis waiting to engulf the M50 in the coming months. The opening of the final section of the road last June, the reopening of the schools in September, the prospect of the port tunnel next March, and the coming dark days and wet winter weather will multiply the misery, the traffic and the queues.
The crisis at the Westlink plaza is not solely a cold economic problem; it is an unnecessary cause of widespread human misery. The money the State receives is arguably negated by the cost to motorists, business and the environment of hours wasted in toll bridge tailbacks.
The Government and the tolling company could give short- term relief to the commuters by lifting the barriers, giving them a vital breathing space.
This would provide time to present workable economic plans for the next 14 years that did not enrich them both at the expense of the army of frustrated motorists.
An argument about whether NTR or the State will fleece the motorist more in the years ahead does nothing to lessen the congestion, although it certainly helps to pass the blame from big business to big government. - Yours, etc,
Senator SHANE ROSS, Seanad Éireann, Dublin 2.
Madam, - I try to avoid the M50 car park whenever possible. I chanced it today at 17.30 and it took me five minutes to go from the Tallaght junction to Belgard, less than a mile. I had had enough by then and left it. There were only a few cars exiting there - the rest were in a queue for the toll bridge a few kilometres north. This is a regular occurrence.
There are also regular queues southbound from the airport to the toll bridge. When you get through the Westlink toll plaza, the traffic clears. With a straight face, NTR tells us that the toll booths are not the main cause of the problem. They have surveys proving their case. Surveys and polls can be made to tell you whatever you want to hear.
To those in charge of our traffic management, including the Minister, I say, wake up and believe the evidence of your eyes. If it looks like a fish, smells like a fish and swims like a fish, chances are it's a fish! - Yours, etc,
RÓNÁN Ó CAOINDEALBHÁIN, Bóthar tSlí Leathain, Baile Atha Cliath 15.