We want decent transport
Page 40
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In CM October 15 you called Transport 2000 "the pro-rail group."
I know how tempting it is to polarise people and groups, according to what they stand for, into friends and foes, pro-this and con-that. In reality, of course, things are not so simple.
Transport 2000 does not set out to champion the interests of any one small group of people; it is neither a labour union nor a trade association.
Its aim is to give people access to goods and places and other people with the least possible damage to ourselves and our world.
That means, among other things, getting planning authorities to plan towns and villages in a way that gives us the opportunity to work and shop within walking distance of where we live. It means holding down food prices by cutting out the wasteful shuttling of produce that should go straight from farm to table. It means a better deal for cyclists and those without the use of a car.
But whatever form of Transport 2000's work takes at any particular place and time. it is powered by the will to give people of all ages and fortunes the access they need, at the lowest long-term cost in fuel, land, living conditions and health.
Where plain facts and figures show that rail meets these conditions better than road, Transport 2000 chooses accordingly.
The Thames Valley Divisional Group, on the other hand, is at the moment fighting for Oxfordshire's bus services, now threatened with death by desertion, for the county council is withdrawing subsidies and proposing instead a patchwork of car-sharing and unlicensed minibuses.
Decent public transport -both rail and road -is at the very centre of what Transport 2000 is striving for. Its members are not a self-interest lobby, but voice the interests of the great majority of people in this country.
IAN THOMPSON, Transport 2000, Oxford