Sir, - Very belatedly I have seen Vincent Browne's article on the solution to Dublin's traffic problems (Opinion, August 9th) and I rejoice that, at last, someone has broken the mould of columnists whose expertise on infrastructural development bears an inverse relationship to the firmness of their opinions. He shows sufficient use of reason to propose a simple and effective remedy for the traffic problem: namely, to deprive drivers of any place to park their vehicles other than their own driveways. It is a pity, however, that he made two monstrous errors, which I cannot leave uncorrected.
The first is that people "who work in the ESB" are public servants, equivalent to civil servants of either the central or local government type. They are as much public servants as, but no more than, anyone who serves the public - shop assistants, bank clerks or, indeed, journalists who actually report pertinent facts (as opposed to columnists, editors and other media supernumeraries). I marvel that even Government Ministers sometimes seem unaware of the fact that ESB was established as a wholly commercial entity for the precise reason that their predecessors judged that civil servants could not carry out the function satisfactorily.
While the public, in the form of the State, own the ESB, they pay nothing to run it, and do not even invest in its assets. People who work in the ESB, like any commercial company, are paid solely from the revenue derived from the product they deliver. (That they are not paid excessively is clear from any objective comparison between electricity prices here and elsewhere.) Parking spaces provided for them are similarly funded, and that provision, therefore, is as bad as, but no worse than, similar provisions by countless private commercial entities.
His second blunder is the notion that to travel in a taxi to and from work or anywhere else is better, from a traffic or public interest point of view, than to drive in one's own car. Where is the logic of that? For many years I have been using a bicycle for the purpose, despite having a car-parking space allocated to me, and I delight in the privilege of the bus lanes as I speed past semi-stationary traffic. In those bus lanes, however, I have a definite impression of being bullied by taxi drivers, in contrast to the benign and indulgent attitude that I experience from bus drivers.
A taxi is just a car with an extra person on board. If anything, that makes it worse than a car containing only those needing to travel on the journey concerned. It entirely mystifies me that anyone could see virtue in allowing taxis into bus lanes or giving them any privileges over other vehicles. - Yours, etc.,
Frank Farrell, Lakelands Close, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.