CONGRATULATIONS John Ward (Transport failings, letters, January 15) on an excellent letter.

We are still paying for ill-conceived Government actions implemented in the 1950s and 1960s.

Many towns and cities ran a public transport system which was clean and efficient, the tramcar.

In the years following the First World War, many of these operators sought funding for both track renewal and replacement trams. What did the Government of the day do? Offered such authorities large discounts if they ordered double-deck buses.

Why was this done? To prop up bus manufacturing industries.

Fifty years later, with a Government stressing the need to go green, the proposed new tramway in Leeds was turned down on the grounds of cost. Some of the existing tramway schemes, such as in Sheffield and Manchester, seeking to add new routes, were also turned down.

How green are these decisions?

In 1960 we saw the wholesale destruction of the UK's railway network. Not only were rural lines closed but feeder stations to major cities were dispensed with.

There is little hope of ever reversing the loss of our feeder stations as the new privatised (run-for-profit) railways are less than keen to spend the necessary capital, or hire more rolling stock to cover the needs of existing passengers, let alone additional passengers.

Finally, road congestion. York is, in the main, its own enemy. Unnecessary traffic lights and poor sequencing of traffic flows, road narrowing at pedestrian crossings and speed humps all serve to disrupt traffic flows.

Now there's the ftr; a vehicle which, had the local traffic commissions office still been operational, would not have got permission to run in the narrow confines of the City of York.

Incidentally, I have yet to encounter the levels of traffic congestion which York councillors seem to think exists.

David Rhodes, The Shrubberies, Cliffe, near Selby.