REGARDING your articles on traffic and congestion. I am a retired lecturer in town planning. When studying for my RTPI exams, a major study was published on the subject entitled Traffic in Towns by Professor Sir Colin Buchanan.

It was a thorough analysis of the problems associated with traffic and the growth of the private car. It is still highly relevant today as the fall-back position discussed in the text was do nothing and let congestion be the leveller.

The Treasury and the environment cannot afford to build more roads – even in the USA this approach does not work.

We can try to balance public and private transport but apart from perhaps Oxford this has not worked. We have not made public transport more attractive and the trains are actively putting people off.

We can try to restrict entry to our cities by a tax or congestion charge, but this is not popular with the public.

We can tinker and 'pretend' to plan for the future and just let congestion and its impact get worse and worse.

I recommend that your journalist searches Traffic in Towns and discovers that we have not advanced our approaches in 50 years.

CLIFFORD WHEELER

Roeshot Crescent, Christchurch