WHAT a fatuous suggestion from Ken Beavan (Letters, April 27) that the Millennium Bridge should have been designed for motor vehicles.

Building another vehicle bridge across the Ouse would simply unleash suppressed demand for yet more car use, and funnel even more vehicles on to already overcrowded streets.

John Major's Government recognised the importance of reducing private car use in cities, without upsetting voters. They set in place the planning framework for local government, which is bringing more Park & Ride, trams, cycle paths and bus priority schemes into being, across the UK. The present Government has reinforced and accelerated this process.

Let's keep our road space for those who need to use it, and offer attractive alternatives for those who only want to use it.

Paul F. Hepworth,

Windmill Rise, York.

...IT ISN'T difficult to answer Ken Beavan's and Michael Cadoux's salient points raised in letters (April 27) although it took me a while to wade through the drivel.

First Mr Beavan...

1. Another road bridge in York? I think not. A road bridge would probably have cost ten times what the Millennium Bridge cost and the inexorable growth in motor traffic predicted for the future would have negated the expenditure in around five years. Net result gridlock and more pollution requiring yet another bridge and so on and so forth.

2. A new cycleway outrageous? Rubbish. The reasons countries such as Holland and Denmark have mostly solved their transport problems is that, unlike the UK, they didn't let their transport policy get hi-jacked by the car lobby. Hence they kept trams, cycling and walking facilities as an integral part of their civic planning (i.e they used foresight) while the UK waited until the obvious problems became virtually terminal then applied sticking plaster to gaping wounds. In short, too little too late.

To see successful integrated transport in action take a trip to either Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Ghent or Bruges.

Now for Mr Cadoux... Ever been along the Fulford cycle path? Doesn't seem like it. I cycle it regularly and the lines might just as well not be there or all the attention they get. Responsible shared use finds its own safety level if mutual respect is exercised.

Cyclists need a bell and some manners and pedestrians need awareness and self-discipline.

Hardly rocket science.

Graham Horne,

Beech Avenue, Bishopthorpe.

Updated: 10:24 Monday, April 30, 2001