IT IS evident from the remarks made by Paul Hepworth (Upgrade is road to greater jams, Readers' Letters, April 28) that he has no idea of the importance of the A1237, both locally and nationally.

I would point out that the A1237 is not only a distributor for local traffic. It is a relief road for the A1, taking traffic from Tadcaster to the A59 whenever the A1 road is closed for any emergency.

It is a relief road for the A64 from the Hopgrove Roundabout to Copmanthorpe.

On race days, it allows traffic to by-pass the A64 race course turn-off. It has, therefore, a major part to play in traffic flows on the major trunk roads.

The cause of road congestion is a population that is expanding faster than the country's infrastructure. Roads built for 20 million motorists have to contend with 30 million, a large proportion of whom are young and require cars to find and keep in work.

The same is true of hospitals, social services and even our jails.

While infrastructure lags behind population growth, delays are inevitable. I haven't heard or read any comment saying that we should stop building hospitals to cut waiting lists or have fewer jails to keep crime down.

The A1237 should have been built as a dual carriageway from the start. Penny-pinching and poor perception made it a single carriageway. Since its opening, there have been continual efforts to make it safer and reduce congestion.

Reality and safety dictate that it should be dualled along its entire length.

Personally, I will vote for any party that gets to grip with this problem.

Steve Helsdon, Traffic Action Group, Howe Hill Close, Holgate.


* ACCORDING to your newspaper, each fatal road accident costs £1,400,000 to investigate. Even before the A1237 was built, there had been a debate regarding where or not it should be a dual carriageway.

In recent years, the York transport manager and others have said that to make it a dual carriageway "would encourage drivers to use it" and "take traffic off side roads". They use these arguments to validate doing nothing. They do not want to increase its usage.

These are the same people who suggest closing St Leonard's Place and Lendal Bridge to normal traffic. The traffic would be diverted through Bootham and Leeman Road.

The longer the inevitable building of a dual carriageway is put off, the more it costs. One example of rising costs is the Bay Bridge over the Bay of San Francisco.

After the earthquake in 1989, it was decided to retrofit the bridge so it may survive the next earthquake. The initial cost was $1,600,000,000; now it is $5,600,000,000 and rising.

Paul Glew, Palo Alto, California.