I had a good laugh reading Peter Hammond's letter (EDP, 13 November 2004) in which he claimed that 'the Green Party blames motorists for congestion'. We emphatically do not. People are forced to use a car by the appalling state of public transport and lack of safe provision for cycling. No individual can decide to use a fast, efficient bus service unless it exists!

As for space and resources: one car uses enough resource to provide 100 bicycles, and one bus can transport 50 people. I'll leave you to work out whether 50 cars cause more congestion than one bus.

Of course we could have a twenty-first century road network as you suggest: we only need to demolish half of the city, rebuild it all over the greenbuilt and beyond and then we would have plenty of room for urban motorway. The Northern Distributor Road would help achieve the above, but in reverse order.

Yours sincerely,