I CAN'T be the only person to notice from your excellent road map in The Press (January 29) that running alongside many of the problem roads and villages is a perfectly good railway network with rails and trains already in situ.

With a little imagination, reinstating stations, more trains and so on, a lot of commuter traffic could be taken off the roads. Or is that too controversial and threatening for the bus companies?

The council could still find a way of charging weary commuters for Park&Ride, but let the train take the strain.

P Egan, Stockton-on-the-Forest, York.


* COUN Joe Watt suggested (Readers' Letters, February 4) that mixed messages are emanating from York's ruling Lib Dem group, with council leader Steve Galloway supporting dualling of the A1237, while one of his colleagues is urging retention of its roundabouts.

Our elected councillors come from a variety of employment backgrounds, but I am not aware that any of them are professional transport planners or highway engineers.

Therefore, the ruling group and those in coalition with them, must depend heavily on the technical and economic advice which they will receive on this subject, from the council's transportation team.

This politically unbiased advice will be given in accordance with national and local transport policy guidance, and can cover all the scenarios involving roundabouts, dualling and flyovers.

Computer modelling can predict likely traffic flows for many years ahead. The outcome may well be contrary to the instinctive demands of York car users, prospective MPs and some local councillors. It may find that a dualled A1237 will become as bunged up in a decade or less as the present road, creating jams tomorrow rather than jam tomorrow. Or maybe not.

Alterations to roundabout junctions may well create a subtle capacity increase, which will not unleash a torrent of suppressed demand on the present road. This is far cheaper and less damaging than burying yet more countryside in Tarmac.

Incidentally, the roundabouts date back to the road's construction by the Highways Agency. City of York Council merely inherited them.

The political point scoring should perhaps become more restrained until the views of the real experts are made public.

Meantime, I'd prefer to see an alternative discussion, on whether York or any other UK City can truly build its way out of traffic congestion.

Paul Hepworth, Windmill Rise, Holgate, York.


* I HAVE to travel daily from the east side of York to go north on the A19.

I usually go through town (Gillygate, Bootham and so forth) as long as it's before 7.50am, and on my return I use cross-country routes north of the ring road to avoid it then too. Surely that was not the intention?

A new road will only be successful if there are no roundabouts, just as we have to the east and south of the city.

If I am travelling along the A59 at peak times towards York, I usually turn right and use the south and east sections of the ring road purely because the traffic keeps flowing due to the slip roads and the dual carriageway. This is much quicker and less stressful, but a longer distance.

I expect there are thousands of other commuters who, also, avoid the northern ring road between the A59 junction and the Hopgrove roundabout.

If the roundabouts are retained in the new scheme, there will be no improvement.

Gillian Shepherd, Elmpark Vale, York.