Sir – Railfuture Thames Valley and Bus Users Oxford support public demand for a Witney-Oxford rapid transit.
A40 commuters endure several miles of daily congestion between Eynsham and Wolvercote and on Woodstock or Banbury Road. The B4044 joins a mile of congestion on Botley Road.
The A4095 is busy with commuters either using Hanborough rail station or joining the A44. John Hook (Report, May 8) wants a cableway along the former Witney railway.
But the 0.6-mile Emirates Air-Line cableway between Greenwich and Royal Docks in London cost £60m. Witney to Oxford via the former railway is 12 miles: 20 times as long as the Air-Line. The £15–£25m figure obtained by your reporter is, therefore, a woeful underestimate.
David Leach (Letters, May 29) wants a monorail between termini at Witney and Pear Tree, calling at Eynsham and, perhaps, Cassington.
Monorail passengers would have to change to park-and-ride buses for the three miles between Pear Tree and central Oxford.
This compares badly with alternatives that offer direct travel between central Witney and central Oxford without changing. A modern monorail is a beam on concrete columns several metres high. Building one costs twice as much per mile as a tramway. This is partly because for decades monorail builders have never agreed a standard size for the concrete beam.
Hence makers of monorail beams and vehicles have never matched the scale economies that tram builders achieve. A monorail over several miles of Oxfordshire Green Belt would be strongly opposed.
This would cost much time and money to contest. Witney Oxford Transport (WOT), therefore, proposes comparing three ground-level technologies: rail, tram and guided bus-way. WOT also supports redoubling the Cotswold Line between Wolvercote and Charlbury to allow hourly trains.
The hourly Witney-Woodstock bus could then offer rail connections at Hanborough.
Hugh Jaeger, Media officer, Railfuture Thames Valley Branch, Chairman, Bus Users Oxford, Oxford
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