Sir — Dr Pritchard is right (Letters, October 24): Oxford’s transport needs better integration, and a bigger, better rail and bus interchange should be its hub.

People have bemoaned Oxford rail station’s inadequacy ever since the 1850s. A combined bus station and six-platform rail station was planned in the 1930s but stopped by the Second World War and post-war austerity. A good hub needs good spokes! Oxford rail station now has no buses to Summertown, Barton or Kidlington and only two an hour to Marston. It has frequent direct buses to Headington, Iffley, Cowley and Blackbird Leys — but the county council seems to want to stop them all!

Our buses were once a good network, with east-west and north-south routes throughout Oxford interchanging easily at Carfax. But deregulation in 1986 unleashed “bus wars”: free-for-all competition that congested and polluted Cornmarket. Pedestrianisation made Cornmarket more pleasant but also made the route between Magdalen Street and High Street too circuitous. Bus routes between North Oxford and Headington lost so many passengers that both operators eventually abandoned them.

The county’s proposal to pedestrianise High Street, Queen Street and St Aldate’s uses “super-bus” as a euphemism for “shuttle bus”. At The Plain passengers would have to change en masse: including disabled people, the elderly, people with infants in buggies and people carrying bulky shopping.

Campaigners hope pedestrianisation would increase walking and cycling. But these modes cannot serve all people for all journeys. If pedestrianisation reduced bus and rail integration, more people would make more car trips, many of them congesting the ring road. And people without cars would simply lose out.

Hugh Jaeger, Oxford