Sir - It is right that Oxford's park-and-ride provision is to be extended and made cheaper and easier to use. However, reliance upon buses to serve them is wrong.

First, buses bring dreadful pollution right into the heart of the city, and its pedestrian areas. Not only is this unpleasant, it is also the cause of very real disease and ill-health. Pedestrians must also endure the threat to life and limb posed by heavy vehicles rushing about in their midst, with the minimum of restraint.

Second, buses are the slowest form of mechanized transport yet invented, averaging just 8mph around town. A bicycle is half as fast again, even when you take no account of the need to walk to a bus stop and wait for service. Buses and cycles cannot safely share the same causeway, and make cycling unpleasant, as well as dangerous. It is hardly surprising that cycling is in decline in Oxford, mirroring the rise in bus passage.

Third buses are expensive, especially once you account for all the subsidy. They pay for barely one-sixth of the cost of the roads they quickly destroy. We pay the rest in taxes.

There are alternatives, especially on fixed routes between town and park-and-ride depots. Ultra-light rail would remove the pollution, and much of the threat to cyclists. (Trams do not need to frequently pull in across their path.) A plethora of light electric vehicles (LEVs) are coming on to the market, benefiting from improvement in battery technology (electric cycles, carts, SEGWAY, etc.), all of which could share a causeway with the bike with reasonable safety.

Why does all transport planning remain focused on the bus to the exclusion of all else, and to the detriment of leisure, business, and health, in our city?

Dr Ian East, Islip