Any ''overhaul'' of Canberra's transport system (''Stanhope to overhaul transport'', July 24), p1) should not summarily dismiss a railway component.
To help ''combat'' global warming, we must reduce the use of fossil fuel-burning vehicles, most of which carry only one person. Car pooling, and cars and trucks powered by electricity (or hydrogen) are options, but greatly increased use of mass transport would be much more effective.
But are diesel buses the answer? They are not well suited to the big peaks and troughs of passenger demand, and cannot cover every street, or neighbourhood, in a city such as Canberra.
Railways are ideal for moving ''rushes'' of people. Picture a railway system with stations in the centres of ''suburban clusters'' and/or in every major and secondary town centre, in the city, and at the airport. Each station has a large, free or inexpensive ''pay and ride'' area for cars, bikes and bicycles. Lines run parallel to (or under) major arterial roads. The trains are electrically powered, and thus can use sustainable energy sources.
A surface railway network would be very expensive to build; a subway system even more so. But inevitable dramatic rises in petrol prices in the future, along with the consequences of global warming and the action needed to combat it, will reduce the relative and ''real'' costs over the longer term. Rail is an option that shouldn't be discarded without seriously addressing the most important longer-term issues.
Dr Douglas Mackenzie, Queanbeyan, NSW
Your editorial (''No easy fix for public transport'', Forum, July 25, p12) left out the hardest and most important thing which the Government will have to do if it wants to achieve the slightest improvement in Canberra's transport.
It will have to stop its automatic rejection of heresy. For example, with the reduction in car parking in Civic and Woden, and the rise in its cost, we keep hearing talk of ''park and ride''. But woe betide anyone who wants to improve park-and-ride access to Civic and Woden (or to various places in between) by putting bus stops under the bridges at Novar-Kent streets and Carruthers Street. The trunk route between Civic and Woden exists only to provide express services between those two points. The nonsense of having the dedicated bus lane in the middle of a major road is part of Canberra's heritage and like ugly, inadequate buildings, must therefore be preserved. It's quite irrelevant that the buses trundling between Civic and Woden now do so even more slowly than they did when I came here in 1996 what they provide is called an express service, and as far as the Government is concerned, nothing may be done to alter that idea.
With all that in mind, how about a bus stop on the trunk route at Parliament House, Canberra's biggest single employer and tourist attraction? No, there are already local bus routes crawling in the area, and it's up to passengers to organise their lives around what ACTION and the Government provide.
Re-route some of the buses just a little, and bring some routes together a bit more, to provide more frequent services in areas where bus routes are close to each other but not so close as to provide a good total service? Sorry, the concept is just too complicated.
Everyone knows how hard it is to change the mindset of those who think all questions have been answered.
G.T.W. Agnew, Page
Health blame
Hang about a bit, didn't the Labor Party have 11 years to formulate a health policy? Notwithstanding, of course, that Kevin Rudd promised in conjunction with the states to fix the problems with public hospitals by June this year, or take over the same. Just another among the litany of broken promises which the Show Pony has signed off on. More inquiries, more spin and more delay. Don't blame me, I voted Liberal.
Tom Griffin, Pambula
What a nerve Malcolm Turnbull has to criticise Kevin Rudd for delays in reshaping the health system. Turnbull, Tony Abbott and other Howard ministers had years and years to reform a system which was falling apart at the seams. The Coalition should be taking a bipartisan approach to fixing a health system upon which we will all depend at some time in our lives.
Ric Hingee, Duffy
Buck moves here
Was that Kevin Rudd I saw on the news last night waving to ''The Buck'' as it passed by.
Les Neulinger, Farrer
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