The discussion paper by the ACT's transport planner (''Expert puts our future on buses'', July 28, p1) is surprisingly inadequate and vastly disappointing.
The author suffers from tunnel vision in his single-minded focus on bus transport in the next decades, and his lack of urgent attention to the potential alternative of light rail.
Any efficient transport system for Canberra must be part of an integrated city plan, all of which goes far beyond drawing lines on a map to arrive at a rejigging of bus corridors. Projections of population growth and urban density argue in favour of giving serious consideration to light rail for the future, and planning must begin now.
The discussion paper itself looks 20 years ahead, by which time it will be too late to begin planning for an efficient and environmentally friendly future transport system. Let's hope that the public consultation envisioned in the paper will pinpoint the urgency of planning for light rail now.
David Pfanner, Hughes
Apparently cost was largely irrelevant to transport expert Jarrett Walker's report on our buses (''Expert puts our future on the buses'', July 28, p1).
No mention of capital cost or ratepayer subsidy required to run his if-we-build-it-much-bigger-they-m ight-conceivably-come recommendations.
But apparently even he was embarrassed to find that half the current massive bus subsidy goes on trawling outer suburbs for 16 per cent of patrons. That's about $40million given to about 5000 people: say, $8000 a person a year. He wants them abandoned. But he remains concerned about social exclusion.
Time yet to abandon our costly, socialist taxi system give taxi licences cheaply to any entrepreneur over 21 with a reasonable record and an annually inspected car, to operate in cooperation with others, via mobile phones and internet sites, lightly regulated, any time they like.
Part-time work for uni students, delivering door-to-door? How come pizza gets delivered free while I pay $20 to take a taxi anywhere?
Tom Waring, Ainslie
I don't know whether Dr Roger Miles (Letters, July 28) has read the previous VFT feasibility reports unfortunately, I lost my copies in the 2003 fires.
Although the Sydney-Melbourne distance may be 715km ''as the magpie flies'', the shortest distance by road, via Canberra, is about 960km. If the Sydney-Melbourne VFT is to travel via Canberra, then this longer distance is the one we must consider.
For very sound engineering and economic reasons, the VFT would have to follow roughly the road route (Hume and Federal highways) or the existing rail route from Sydney to Canberra. From Canberra to Melbourne, there are basically two options: Canberra-(Tumbarumba)-Albury-Melb ourne, or Canberra-Cooma-Cann River-Bairnsdale-Latrobe Valley-Melbourne.
The reasons include maximum allowable gradients, minimum allowable curvatures, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, power supply, etc. If it were possible to build a railway line between Sydney and Melbourne ''as the magpie flies'' it would have been built in the steam era, and progressively upgraded.
Let us assume that the Canberra-Cooma route is chosen for Melbourne. A stop at Cooma would be nice for the ski people in winter and the wildflower people in summer. Stops at Bairnsdale and Latrobe Valley would be nice, for quick trips to Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. On the Canberra-Sydney route, a stop somewhere in the Southern Highlands would be nice too.
Adding in all (or some) of these stops would lengthen a three-hour journey considerably. All the above was studied to death in the previous exercises and the inescapable conclusion was (and still is) that a Sydney-Melbourne (via Canberra) VFT is not ''a goer'' neither for private nor government enterprise. As a rail enthusiast, I wish it were so, but it ain't so let the corpse rest.
Paul E. Bowler, Holder
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