Is he living on another planet?

COUNCILLOR Jon Rogers, the Liberal Democrat standing for elected mayor, must be living on another planet to me, if he thinks the cost of bus fares (Would-be mayor wants transport authority for city: Candidate promises £1.50 fare cap the Post September 18) has anything whatsoever to do with encouraging car commuting motorists to hop onto a bus.

Mr Rogers has promised to: "...introduce £1 and £1.50 bus fares in Bristol if he is allowed [should he be elected] to take control of the city's bus services." He might like to note that I have for decades been writing letters to the Post which have often claimed that even if public transport was free, motorists would still prefer to sit in ever lengthening traffic jams wasting their time. I have done a rough calculation; and over a working lifetime it seems that a Bristol commuting motorist will spend at least a year of their lives going nowhere fast. Even if car drivers did not have to pay any bus fares at all, and were conversely paid the £1/£1.50 capped fares suggested by Mr Rogers to leave their cars at home, the commuting status quo would remain exactly as it is. It ill behoves Mr Rogers as part of his mayoral campaign to suggest he, or anyone else has the solution to Bristol's traffic chaos.

All the ridiculous named 'showcase' bus routes, 'bendy-buses', and taxing business parking spaces in Bristol are doomed to utter failure. It certainly seems that short of a selective ban (at least three in a car for example) on cars entering a ring-fenced inner-city private car exclusion zone, Bristol City Council has not one iota of an idea on how to get commuters out of their cars, and on to public transport. There is no known antidote to the ubiquitous mobile metal prisons that ensnare not only their drivers, but which are also turning the whole inner-city of Bristol into one gigantic parking-lot.

R L Smith