I AGREE with Christian Vassie’s excellent suggestion for a tram system in York; it would be wonderful.

Sadly it’s another example of how far behind we are in this country with our disastrous public transport policies – locally and nationally – and the failure of our politicians to think long term and engage their brains.

Why have they made so many mistakes with key decisions just for short-termism?

Dijon is one of our twin cities; how many times over the decades have our council leaders visited it on our behalf – and at our expense – and not considered implementing a dynamic scheme for York?

Why have so many European cities seen the light and got EU funding as our British cities and roads just keep clogging up? In Barcelona I used the trams continuously for seeing this beautiful city. They were new, spotless, on-time, cheap and an absolute pleasure to use.

I made a film in Wuppertal, Germany, where they built a monorail or suspension railway over the river. European countries have politicians with vision and confidence, while ours wear blinkers.

In the meantime of the tram dream, may I suggest an experiment that York adopt private car use of even numbers one day and odd numbers the next between Monday and Saturday to ease traffic congestion?

Keith Massey, Acaster Malbis, York.