CHIEF Minister Barr and Shane Rattenbury regard opponents of their light rail project as luddites, but they show their own lack of touch with technological change by imposing an early 20th century solution on a 21st century problem.

A range of current and developing technologies would do more to reduce the daily commuting grind in the ACT than an expensive tramline that will take 30 to 50 years to extend throughout ACT suburbia and which will soon be seen as a white elephant when it doesn’t deliver the promised benefits.

Neither Barr nor Rattenbury blush at the fact that large areas of Tuggeranong have the worst internet service of any urbanised region in Australia and we are not even on the NBN plan for the next three-year period!

If they were to negotiate strongly with NBN Co and provide some of the money they intend to waste on light rail to subsidise fibre to the premises in the ACT, we would have an internet service capable of supporting telecommuting (a word they appear to never have heard of).

Another rising technology which will help make the tramline obsolete is the introduction of semi-autonomous electric vehicles.

Admittedly, now in its infancy, this technology will flower long before the government can scrape together the money to expand the light rail network.

Within 10 years, small, smart electric commuting vehicles could be common on our roads and certainly 20 years from now advances in transportation and work practices will have rendered much of the daily commuting hassles a thing of the past.

Barr has shown nothing but desperation by touting the light rail extension to Woden. He has no costings, no credible timetable and no idea of how to get it across Lake Burley Griffin, let alone around or under the Parliamentary Triangle.

Let me give credit where it is due. The government and Shane Rattenbury have done well in fostering the implementation of renewable power generation for the ACT. But that is about where their credit ends.

Weigh it up against a jail that provides very little rehabilitation training for inmates despite strong evidence that it reduces recidivism; an attack on the ACT clubs’ system via extraordinary rate hikes and by allowing a foreign owned consortium to place pokies in the casino; the unethical creation of a job for Brendan Smyth just to disadvantage the Liberals (using ratepayers’ money, of course), and the government’s too cosy relationship with developers.

It is clear that the government has been in office too long and has become both arrogant and condescending.

John Franze, Gowrie

A total waste of space?

COLUMNIST John Griffiths uses the date of origin of the jack plug stating the “design dates from 1878” as well as “that the hole in the phone makes them break when they get wet” as part of his criticism of those who want Apple to retain the feature.

This is despite there having been, for many years, jack plugs sealed at the base specifically to solve this issue of water ingress and that the technology for printing on paper (the medium used by “CityNews”) originates circa the 1400s.

Other aspects of the average mobile phone (possibly all mobile phones) John might like to consider for criticism include:

The vibrating feature, which is generally provided by a small electric motor with an off-centre mechanical load (surely that is getting on a bit); soldering of components (similar vintage to early jack plugs) and

carbon used in resistors (again, early telephone technology if not earlier).

John’s article (CN, September 22) is a total waste of space. Surely he could have better used the resources of ink, energy and paper to address some significant issues as opposed to the public’s reaction to a marketing decision by some phone manufacturing company.

John Evans, via email

Dougal keeps us ‘on the tenters’

A CANBERRA visitor reading Dougal’s review of “Bridget Jones’s Baby” (CN, letters, September 29) was upset by his giving away the ending.

No, he didn’t spoil it for all! Moreover he didn’t even say which “casual bonk” was responsible for “that naughty sperm”.

Dougal does keep us “on the tenters”.

Anyway, when a movie is good knowing the end should not affect its quality for the viewer, otherwise nobody would go and see a movie such as, for example, Joan of Arc. Most people know what happens at the end.

Noelle Roux, Chifley