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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 7 March 2008

A monorail is the answer

• SO Ken Livingstone has decided that trams will replace Oxford Street buses and that all other traffic (including cabs) will be banned (Mayor Ken’s pledge for an Oxford Street tram, February 29).
Let’s hope this ill-conceived idea will meet the same fate as his other equally stupid idea to run trams from north to south London which was rightly aborted but only after millions of pounds had been wasted in consultancy fees.
The main problem with buses in Oxford Street is that there are too many routes (approximately 15) being allowed to run with the majority only carrying six or fewer passengers outside the rush hours. This is the real problem that needs to be addressed.
The main shopping area nowadays is Regent Street plus Oxford Circus to Marble Arch. The stretch from Oxford Circus to Tottenham Court Road carries far fewer buses and is not an over attractive area to shoppers.
Again his plans do not make sense! Save the £200 million for far more deserving causes by running feeder buses (bendy buses only liked by fare-dodgers and pick-pockets) along the areas in question.
Reduce substantially all over London the number of buses that block the roads while only carrying a handful of passengers outside the rush hours.
This would not only create great savings in costs but also most importantly help to make a cleaner atmosphere.
It is not only Oxford Street that becomes bogged down with buses. Just a few of the other West End streets are: Regent Street, Charing Cross Road, Haymarket, Trafalgar Square, the Strand down to Trafalgar Square, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly. In other words nearly every major road is already full of buses so there is no room for displaced buses from Oxford Street.
Ken has already been told that the smaller roads are incapable of doing the task. Yet he says that buses might be routed along Wigmore Street, which really is an open admission that he has not the faintest idea of how to overcome the problems.
If he proceeds, it will lead to one of the biggest ever cock-ups. The real answer is a monorail. Let us hope that from now on common sense, based on facts will prevail.
DOUGLAS WALTERS
Address supplied

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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