FURTHER to K Anderson’s letter of January 20, I totally agree that less traffic equates to higher speed.

I often visit York (as a shopper, never a tourist), complete with bike. On my first visit after the lunacy of closing Lendal Bridge, I did notice that the traffic along Melrosegate and Lawrence Street was travelling faster, making life much more dangerous for a cyclist.

Again on my first visit I nearly ran down two groups of pedestrians on Lendal Bridge. It’s not the pedestrians’ fault; they think the bridge is traffic-free and forget about cyclists.

Then I was nearly knocked off my bike by first a bus, then a taxi, both going like bats out of hell across Lendal Bridge.

This did not happen when there was traffic on the bridge. The closure has made life much more dangerous for cyclists.

My mother lives on what used to be a virtually traffic-free road in Clifton. The traffic has increased five-fold since Lendal was closed, as drivers try to find alternative routes.

These councillors and traffic planners seem to believe that if they close a road/bridge to traffic, then it will simply disappear. Wrong! It goes somewhere else.

On December 6 in the Bishopthorpe Road area, the traffic was unbelievable. It took four minutes to cross the road on foot. Several shopkeepers told me they had noted a 200 per cent rise in traffic since Lendal Bridge was closed.

KS Chapman, Olive Grove, Harrogate.