You can have your fossil fuel fill, but then what? (From The Argus)

You can have your fossil fuel fill, but then what?

8:00am Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Your Argus

I MUST reply to two letters I’ve read recently about cycling and car usage, both from different perspectives.

Steve Percy makes a valid point when he says people need to move around in the manner “which suits them best” (Letters, January 17). In his case, and that of others, he is referring to driving everywhere. Very well, but this doesn’t help us address the fact there are too many cars on the road, and not enough space for everyone to use it as it suits them.

I cycle to work. I enjoy it most of the time but sometimes it becomes a bind, especially in cold weather. What would really suit me best is a fast, powerful car of my own with its own comfortable, personalised interior and a nice sound system. If that was the case, what would also really suit me best is to cut a new road from my house, through the park nearby, directly to my office, where I would have my own parking space to myself. That really would suit me best, but will it ever happen?

It’s not a question of what suits us best – it’s a question of what the roads will realistically look like five or ten years ahead.

This is something I feel D Cook might agree with (Letters, January 20). He/she is 100% correct in pointing out the benefits of cycling and the fact it is the solution to a lot of the problems facing us on Britain’s roads.

Unfortunately, he/she is also correct in stating there is a wall of selfishness and idiocy on the part of some drivers who cannot – or refuse to – see the bigger picture: that roads will only get busier in the future.

But they need not worry, for their voices will be heard the loudest. When everyone has had enough of the Green Party trying to save the planet, every motorist will likely exercise their economic right to gorge on as much fossil fuel as they can manage, until there is none left. And then what?

M Arrowsmith, Dyke Road, Brighton

I FEEL the desecration of a major section of Old Shoreham Road, the main east-west route through the city other than trekking up to the bypass, for a cycle lane ought to go down in history as the stupidest piece of ideological blindness since the pointless semi-destruction of Grand Avenue for the same purpose. In busy times, I think the Old Shoreham Road constriction will give new meaning to the term “bottleneck”, while at the same time creating even heavier traffic problems on alternative routes which at present are relatively minor. It is time we woke up to the fact that “Green” has meanings other than eco-friendly.

M Boyask, New Church Road, Hove