New roads are safer and better for environment

MICHAEL JOB (Letters, June 15) attacks the development of a basic road system in Ireland.

He combines this attack with a moral, environmental and economic appeal for more public transport and implies that it should get priority over road-building.

In recent weeks I have travelled in excess of 3,500km on roads from Cork city to Waterford, Wexford, Dublin, Louth, Sligo, Galway, Mayo, Limerick and west Cork.

It is only when I drive on modern dual carriageways linking our cities and towns that I gain some degree of safety from poor roads, poor driving and severe congestion.

On the western seaboard linking four cities — Galway, Limerick, Killarney and Cork — we are reduced to driving on single carriageways snaking through country towns and villages and sharing them with massive lorries while junctions and side roads appear from everywhere.

Passing though Limerick city now takes 45 minutes.

I regularly drive through pretty towns devastated by excess traffic — all of them should be bypassed.

What about the quality of the lives of the people living in them?

What about the excess fuel that every vehicle uses because we are driving on poor roads?

The carbon footprint delivered alone justifies developing a dual carriageway network throughout the State linking all the major cities with bypasses for all towns and villages on national roads.

However, I fully agree with Michael Job’s core point on public transport, and I would even go further: the M3 route near Tara is something that will shame us as a nation in the years ahead.

We must balance economic growth and development with our environment and heritage, but Mr Job’s rant against new road infrastructure smacks of protest for the sake of protest.

As an environmental consultant to the tourism and hospitality sector, I spend all those kilometres visiting businesses to show them how to reduce their environmental and carbon footprint.

For my own part, I just want to stay alive and reduce my own carbon footprint while doing it.

Maurice J Bergin

Dewberry

Mount Oval Village

Rochestown

Cork