Brighton's snarled-up streets on the day of the London to Brighton bike ride raise questions about the need for a park-and-ride facility.

The bike ride attracted 27,000 riders. The inability of the rail system to carry them to and from the event meant some riders had to use buses and lorries.

However, the majority were picked up by car. Would these people have used a park-and-ride facility?

It is unlikely because they needed to load bikes on to their vehicles.

Suppose 5,000 cars came to collect bikes. Even if a park-and-ride space for 1,000 cars had been available and drivers had been persuaded to use it, it would still have only made a small dent in the traffic jams.

Another important question about park-and-ride is: How big would be big enough?

If Braypool or Patcham Court Farm were turned over to park-and-ride, what proportion of city-centre parking would this soak up and would it make a significant difference to Brighton's parking problem?

In fact, would park-and-ride be a solution at all?

According to a report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, park-and-ride schemes simply shift traffic and car pollution from towns to the country.

The real issue is our poor, fragmented public transport system.

Rural buses are infrequent, unreliable and expensive. Trains are inflexible and expensive and buses don't join up with them.

Ordinary people have too small a voice in the planning and decision-making process for our public transport system.

We need a Sussex-wide passenger transport authority, just like those in London, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, where services are planned, co-ordinated and integrated and where fares and timetables are fixed, allowing value-for-money travel.

-Nick Hearn, Brighton