ALL buses in Oxford are low-emission, at least 75 are hybrids, but central Oxford air quality still breaches public health limits.

The options to achieve zero bus emissions are trams, trolleybuses, battery buses or biomethane buses.

Only trams can also increase passenger capacity as much as Oxford needs. An articulated single-deck tram carries three times as many people as a double-deck bus.

Trams last twice as long as buses and are more reliable. In the rare case of a tram breakdown, the next one can push it.

Van Coulter (The Issue, May 20) backs trams, citing Grenoble’s tramway which opened in 1987. Grenoble’s network now has five lines, covers 22 miles and carries 210,000 passengers a day.

About 240 places in Europe have tramways. About one in five of these has a population no bigger than Oxford’s. Three Italian and nine French towns, each the size of Oxford or smaller, opened their tramways in the last decade.

Those of Aubagne and Valenciennes link towns no bigger than Banbury with even smaller towns nearby.

Trams serve many cities and towns with medieval streets as cramped and geography as irregular as Oxford’s. Tram priority measures minimise obstruction by other traffic. In both France and England, buses attract more passengers once a tramway connects with them.

A sensible number of buses or trams from Kidlington should run through Cornmarket and Carfax to reconnect with East Oxford.

Jean Fooks disagrees, despite there being no evidence of hazard. Wayward speculation is no substitute for fact.

HUGH JAEGER
Chairman, Bus Users Oxford
Park Close
Oxford