he legions of readers who insist I should walk to work must be trying to kill me, I discovered on Bank Holiday Monday.>

For Full Story

EDITOR'S CHAIR - by Steve Cohen

Walking just can't be healthy

The legions of readers who insist I should walk to work must be trying to kill me, I discovered on Bank Holiday Monday.

For I did a trial run along High Wycombe's London Road and was left with a sore throat from awful exhaust fumes.

Devotees of this column will recall that I caused a furore by complaining about the traffic on the 1.5 mile journey from my home to the office in High Wycombe.

Several readers told me I should either walk or take public transport. I had the chance to put this to the test when my car's exhaust packed up. Me and Mrs Editor's Chair decided to walk to the B & Q store next to The Star offices to buy some wallpaper.

She ended up having a coughing fit halfway through the walk, while I finished with a throat that felt like sandpaper. And no, we don't smoke thank you very much. The fumes from the passing cars were simply dreadful.

We also put the area's public transport to the test and were left amazed at the lack of buses. The Bank Holiday is no excuse for the lack of available public transport from High Wycombe town centre to the UCI cinema at Cressex.

The county council's travel information line informed me there was a number 315 bus at 25 minutes past the hour every hour that would go to the cinema.

What they didn't mention was that there wasn't one at 6.25pm (it's every two hours in the evening). This wasn't very helpful, considering the film started at 7pm.

Luckily, we left earlier, at 4.25. The bus was incredibly prompt, but packed. The return journey was more worrying. The film ended at 8.55pm. The next (and final) bus was 10.08pm. It meant we had to hang around at Cressex for more than an hour before we boarded the near-empty but punctual bus.

I know more money is being given to rural bus services, but there needs to be a tremendous improvement before people will give up their cars.

I've said this many times before, and I'll repeat myself. The Government and our councils are already implementing strategies to penalise people for using their cars. They insist we must use public transport. What they don't seem to realise is that the public transport system is simply not adequate enough to replace the private motor car.

It's pointless, and unnecessarily punitive, to deter car use when there is currently nothing to go in its place.

It is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Or is it that the powers-that-be actually want us to use horses and carts from now - because they don't have a better alternative.

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