PUBLIC transport was once used by the vast majority of people but now by only a small minority. Can the clock now be turned back? The council hopes so with its proposals for tackling York's traffic problems.

These follow an initial consultation exercise which was a missed opportunity with the public being asked whether they wanted improvements in travelling times and pollution levels, well who would not?

Since the "golden days" of public transport the travelling public now has the choice of using public or private transport and has chosen private.

It might be possible to affect this choice by various carrot-and-stick measures. However, whether any elected politician would dare apply the level of stick required I very much doubt. Either way the original survey did not address itself to the substantive issue of measures that could affect travelling habits.

What cannot be changed is urban geography when in the heyday of public transport towns and cities were more centralised with shops and offices at that centre. Additionally, most people lived near their places of work and their extended families. This is no longer the case with extended suburbs, out-of-town shopping centres and jobs away from home, none of which would have been possible without the private car.

Therefore, looking to the past for traffic solutions will not work. Today's life requires much more travelling and today's traffic problems will require radical new ideas.

Richard Lamb,

Greystoke Road,

Rawcliffe, York.