The heated debate in the letters page (and comments) regarding cyclists versus motorists is truly amazing if not a bit frightening.

It reminds me of Second World War dogfights with Spitfires and the Hun in written form.

What is clear, however, is the number of frustrated drivers out there, trying to cope with York’s traffic mayhem during rush hour.

It is about time City of York Council grasped the nettle to make drastic changes here because with the yearly influx of more traffic on our streets, this will get worse. Possible solutions to the problem would be to separate cyclists away from main roads on to cycle tracks (I now usually take a pleasant river route into York) or if driving by car, remove all obstacles to traffic flow at rush hour.

This could be done by a one-way system in York which might just work if carefully co-ordinated. The shortest route is not necessarily the quickest (although not practical in all cases, I sometimes take the A64 when I want to drive my car across town!).

To see the bigger picture, however, is to try and protect medieval York from this modern onslaught and give it back to the pedestrians.

This could be better achieved by making our wonderful city traffic free.

Would this however lead to a more or less heated letter page?

Phil Shepherdson, Chantry Close, Woodthorpe, York.