It has been listed as the fourth most dangerous street in Canberra. It was never meant to host a large commercial centre.

The West Deakin commercial area which backs onto Kent Street already suffers significant delays at peak times.

Kent Street is a one-lane feeder road that holds schools, a pre-school, medical services and commercial businesses.

To make things worse, John James hospital, which needs room to expand, was outbid by a developer for the area under discussion.

I do not blame ACTPLA – it does exactly what this ACT government wants.

At the next election, I hope voters will remember the amount of community and recreational land that has been gifted to clubs who have on-sold it. In particular the West Deakin Bowling Club which sits weed-filled and unused.

Likewise the Southern Cross Bowling Club and the Southern Cross Pitch'n'Putt – once beautiful areas that are now a testament to the greed of our large clubs and the folly of the ACT government.

Howard Carew, Issacs

Copyright protection of "the author's life plus 70 years" might seem excessive with ABS data showing "the commercial life of [original literary works] ranging between 1.4 and five years on average" ("Outrage from writers and publishers over move to shorten copyright", Sunday CT, May 8, p4).

That being so, I fail to see how the Productivity Commission can find any saving for the economy by shortening copyright protection. Most works will never be republished.

This suggestion does not auger well for the information highway, coming as it does just after the news that Trove, the inter-library catalogue and repository of online texts, which for years has been too cash-strapped to load new digitised literary works, is to have its budget cut to next to negligible.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

Peter Martin's column in The Sunday Canberra Times (May 8) refers to a Reserve Bank study on economic uncertainty. The study is an example of finding causation from correlation.

Economic outcomes are a contributing factor to uncertainty. To now say uncertainty causes economic outcomes is the same as asking which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

The Reserve Bank should spend more time finding and removing causes of economic uncertainty over which it has control. It can get rid of monetary inflation. Instead of having a positive target for inflation, the RBA can have a zero target. Allowing anything other than zero causes economic uncertainty.

It can stop inflation of the Australian dollar. They can do this by creating money in ways that does not cause inflation. We hear all sorts of arguments from economists on why inflation is necessary. They are chicken-and-egg arguments.

Economists give advice based on modelling. The model used in money creation is the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

It is time the Reserve Bank trained their economists in new models that better reflect reality. One such model is Promise Theory. Another is Complexity Theory.

Kevin Cox, Ngunnawal

It was appropriate that Annabel Crabb's article ("Firing up for classic rich vs poor campaign" Sunday Times, Focus, p20) was accompanied by a Shakespeare cartoon. After all, it was the Bard who wrote, in Julius Caesar: "The answer ... lies in ourselves, that we are underlings ...'

It has been thus since the Australian constitution was adopted in 1901, when anti-democratic politicians were allowed to dominate our lives and thoughts. It is the same now, and will remain so until the 1901 document is replaced by a properly planned, well-debated, apolitical 21st century campaign supported but not manipulated by governments.

The numbers to do this are already there in the hundred-plus lobby groups (ANTaR; ARM; pro-monarchists; citizen groups such as Australians Seniors, Rotarians, charity groups,) and millions of citizens supporting other causes.

All those groups would have to do is recommend to their supporters that they act democratically and patriotically by voting only for any political party, its nominees, or independent candidates who promise that they will support a democratic campaign to initiate replacement of the 1901 constitution by 2025.

Geoff Armstrong, Monash

In response to "Stop lake's cycle mania" (Sunday Times, May 8), perhaps everyone who is not on a bicycle should try walking on the right-hand side of the bike path? That way they would be facing oncoming cyclists, giving them time to take evasive action. But it would only work if everyone did it, right?

Or cyclists could use their bells to warn others of their presence, hopefully long before they sideswipe unsuspecting shared path users.

Barb Mitchell, Ngunnawal

This month's most illogical letter award will surely go to Bruce Ryan (Sunday Times, May 8) for his consideration of five self-selected options for dealing with badly behaved "harridans" (really?) in lycra on our lakeside paths.

Ryan rules out Option 1 – banning bikes outright – because, as he notes correctly, "the majority [of cyclists] are well behaved".

But he thinks it's perfectly reasonable to punish that innocent majority with weekend and holiday bans (Option 4).

He rules out more police patrols (Option 2), whilst ignoring that the unjust and foolish restriction he proposes would be ignored en masse by the cycling community (remember the moronic "crossing rule", anyone?) and would require the territory's entire police resources to enforce.

He also maintains public education (Option 5) doesn't work – so how would the cyclists even know when they were banned?

The illogicality continues. After acknowledging that walkers "stray all over the path" (and thus presumably share some of the blame), Ryan is silent on the fact that a silly and unenforceable cycling ban on some days would, for fairness, have to be matched by an equally silly and unenforceable pedestrian ban on other days.

What nonsense. Instead of banishing legitimate users, let's widen and duplicate busy paths, eliminate conflict points like Commonwealth Place, dramatically increase the handful of "keep left" signs on the Central Basin path (in multiple languages for tourists), and light dark areas along paths. All users can win.

Terry George, Kingston

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