THANK you for your comment (Midweek, August 18) on reducing parking at High Wycombe train station by allowing free parking for drivers carrying at least two passengers.

This is indeed one of the good ideas now coming foward to reduce car usage.

I hope it can be taken further by using the information obtained to route or re-route buses so that lower costs per passenger lead to lower fares, more passengers and hence more buses.

Sharing cars is limited by the amount of information drivers have about other drivers and potential drivers, and especially about people who live on the same route but further away from the station or any centre.

Also buses are needed when people work late or stay in London or other centres for the evening. And even socially and environ- mentally virtuous car sharers could fall out with each other.

Many readers will have seen other ideas in Dr Elsa Woodard's letter in the Bucks Free Press of August 14. Regarding B N Fox's letter (also Midweek, August 18), London Road is indeed by no means satisfactory for people on foot.

The bus lane, however, is an essential prerequisite for integrated transport. It is, one hopes, the precursor to more civilised conditions in Wycombe generally.

The big problem now for police and traffic wardens in dealing with cycling on the pavement is that Fixed Penalty Notices cannot be used. The Home Secretary is trying to put legislation through Parliament to make FPNs apply to the Highway Act offences, not just Road Traffic Act offences as now.

Jim Whitehead

Belmont Road, Chesham

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.