YOUR correspondent Abbi Garton-Crosbie makes the all-too-common mistake of looking at the symptoms and the usual pet answers, but does not address the underlying causes and the changes in life patterns which are driving the number and nature of car journeys that we make (Other transport infrastructure ‘less resilient as result of reliance on cars’, Aug 4).
We could start with changes in food shopping. The first out-of-town supermarket in Scotland was an Asda on the east side of Edinburgh which opened in 1972. If I remember correctly, people even drove from Inverness to shop there. It was followed by others and then the out-of-town shopping centres. In the Glasgow area we now have Braehead, Silverburn, the Fort and the Forge, all with a range of shops and – this is key – easily accessed by car from motorways and with free parking.
READ MORE: Scotland needs a better way to fund transport. Is this the way to do it?
It is not surprising that our traditional town and city centres can not compete, and we see the sad decline of the likes of Sauchiehall Street as a shopping venue in Glasgow. There are other changes in shopping patterns with the growth of Amazon and home delivery (including by supermarkets).
When it comes to education, parents no longer send their children to the local school and even where they do, they seem to feel it safer to take them by car to and from school.
I could wax on about the changes which have encouraged the use of the car and militated against other modes of transport – such as the privatisation of bus services by Margaret Thatcher.
Dr Faheem Malik quotes the public ownership of Edinburgh buses as a success story. I have never understood how Lothian Regional Council managed to get away with ignoring a Westminster diktat that demanded the privatisation of bus services. I worked for Strathclyde Regional Council at the time, and even it folded under the pressure put on it by Westminster. Glasgow Corporation buses and the national Scottish Bus Group were split up and nationalised.
Before you start to say what we should do regarding future transport strategy, just think about how you see the demand for movement changing: what movements do you seek to accommodate; for what purpose; how best can you then accommodate them?
It would be nice to see walking at the head of the table, as this is a means of transport available to many more than the cycling lobby.
Ian Lawson
Milngavie
HIGH-SPEED rail gets a bad name in the UK, as Westminster continues to bungle the HS2 line connecting Birmingham and London which is set to cost at least £88 billion. So how is Sweden, with a population of 10.6 million, achieving a high-speed rail network connecting cities more distant than Thurso and Portsmouth?
The answer is that Sweden has been strategically investing in the existing rail network to increase train speeds to more than 200km/h. Electrification, line straightening and faster rolling stock are the primary tools to achieve this.
READ MORE: New plan for train from Scotland to mainland Europe
Scotland could surely benefit from following the Swedish approach to intercity rail connections. If improvements were made to allow average speeds of 180km/h, trains could travel from Aberdeen to Glasgow in an hour and a quarter. A new 20km line linking Dumfries to the West Coast Mainline around Johnstonebridge could connect Dumfries with Glasgow and Edinburgh in under an hour.
The Scottish Greens have previously championed a Forth Rail Tunnel linking Edinburgh with Kirkcaldy for around £4-6 billion, which would shorten travel times up and down the east coast while freeing up capacity west of Edinburgh. Then there is the Aberdeen-Inverness line, which is long overdue some major improvements to better connect our northern cities (a true northern powerhouse perhaps?) and could connect Inverness with Edinburgh in less than two hours via a Forth Tunnel. Inverness to Dumfries could be less than three hours without having to change train.
Altogether, with pragmatic planning and implementation, Scotland could have a fast and convenient intercity express rail service that could persuade people to ditch the car for public transport. This would also better connect north and south Scotland with the Central Belt and help spread social and economic opportunity across the country. We need to have bold yet achievable visions of what Scotland could be, and a serious plan of how we get there.
Kyle Arnot
Glasgow
AS President Art of the Deal continues to bleat about just how much Iran is desperate to strike a deal with him to end his Epstein war, something odd has happened. Iran is, apparently, in the final throes of a deal with US ally Oman!
More than 70 years since the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup in Iran to overthrow the legitimate government because it was going to nationalise Iran’s oil, Trump has managed to scupper the fragile arrangement that has allowed the free flow of the black gold to the West.
You’ve got to admit – no-one makes a deal happen quite like Donald...
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
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