Joined-up thinking over airport metro

Sir — Perusal of the scheme for the airport to city metro link leads me to surmise yet again that joined-up thinking seems a most elusive concept in this dynamic go-ahead country of ours.

There are two things at issue here, one being that at present growth rates at Dublin Airport could crack the 40-million-a-year passenger barrier in the foreseeable future; the other being the basic principle of competently handling flows, whatever their nature.

Whether electricity, storm drainage or blood flow, the solution is the same, namely the translation of the cataclysmic into the peristaltic.

Once the latter condition is achieved, the benefits are enormous; infrastructure sized and suitable for 24/7 usage, economical use of all rolling stock and motive power, these are likely the least of it.

Our airport is a growing cataclysmic case, yet to relieve it we are offered a single line that dead-ends at both its extremities.

It would be a very simple thing to extend north-eastwards to connect into the mainline at, say, Donabate, as likewise to reconnect from Sandyford southeast to the existing line at, say, Shanganagh.

By these two measures one would provide direct access to and from the airport — by far the most enormous traffic nexus in the country — and from as far away as Wexford in one direction and Belfast in the other.

For a few kilometres extra you get all this, freeflow both servicing and ameliorating itself over a huge area instead of congealing at Swords and Sandyford.

Joined-up thinking, see?