The Gungahlin Drive Extension spend-up of $90million is public money allocated to buy our votes. When William Hovell Drive was duplicated it didn't take long before peak-hour traffic jams were back. The experience of other cities has shown that doubling road capacity attracts more cars, it does not necessarily reduce congestion.

Many roads in Canberra are congested during peak hours. Sensible use of public resources should see public policy tackle the road congestion problems during these periods. Doubling the capacity of one road because of problems for two to four hours a day is neither value for money nor an equitable distribution of public funds.

To put it into perspective, it is more than the annual public transport allocation for the whole of Canberra, which I understand is $70million. Rather than resorting to building more road capacity as a first choice, I would like to see the provision of more effective, direct public transport for the whole of the city during peak periods.

Car pooling should be promoted and rewarded. A large proportion of ACT employees are government workers. What are government and public-sector employers doing to stagger working hours and to encourage car pooling and public transport use among staff?

The ACT has the highest carbon footprint in Australia. A significant proportion of this is from private transport. If we are genuine in our concern about global warming and the effective use of public funds, we should be doing more ourselves and showing politicians sloppy policy solutions won't cut it.

Vivienne Teoh, Weetangera

Pick up your rubbish

I refer to your article ''Teacher's clean sweep scoops national award'' (July 24, p4) concerning promotion of environmental education at Melrose High School, including that ''slideshows emphasise the need to dispose of rubbish responsibly''.

I applaud this initiative but it made me think this does not accord with what I have observed over several years now and about which I have written to various education ministers.

In fact, in the past month or so I have avoided going past this school on my morning exercise because the amount of rubbish both in the area between it and Marist College and within and just outside the boundaries of Melrose High is an affront to anyone who enjoys such a beautiful city as Canberra.

While I regularly pick up rubbish on other paths, the amount around Melrose is quite frankly out of the question.

Instead of the photograph which accompanied your article, a reality check of the ground around the school would have shown lots of rubbish. The school not only has a responsibility for rubbish within its boundaries but also that which quite clearly is blown into the surrounding area.

Eric Hodge, Pearce

Parent check call

I am pleased that the lesbian couple has lost their case in suing a doctor for having twins instead of one child.

I feel sorry for whichever twin is the unwanted child. It makes me query our neglect in not putting the rights of the unborn child (and I don't mean abortion) more into the spotlight.

Our animal welfare agencies have policies that assess owners' suitability, and will refuse to allocate an animal if they feel the person or environment unsuitable.

It's extraordinary that we don't make similar assessments of the suitability of adults as parents before we allow planned IVF pregnancies to occur.

Are animals more important than children?

S.Thompson, Deakin

Fires a hot issue

Chrissie Shaw, another instant expert on the fires, suggests (Letters, July 24) we stop blaming Jon Stanhope and sheet some of this home to NSW. I remind Shaw that Stanhope said ''blame me'' and that there is currently a battle going on in the Supreme Court to fix some responsibility on NSW for not first putting the fire out at Wayne West's property in the Brindabellas. If Shaw had watched ABC's Four Corners on this issue, she would know that our newly appointed ACT Senior Counsel, Christopher Erskine, is acting for NSW in the case.

Ric Hingee, bushfire victim advocate, Duffy