Transport habits

Most of us when questioned think our habit of using the car is a virtuous one - it is everyone else that does not need to be on the road.

We do not need a survey to tell us that most of us use the car because it is the easiest and often the cheapest thing to do.

Of course, many do use the bus or bicycle but they are largely concentrated in urban or city areas where these alternative forms of transport are regular and viable.

The only thing that will change our transport habits is if the world around us changes.

That means huge improvements to public transport, in particular outside the major towns and cities and into and out of London. It also means that the cost of driving a car has to rise. The two have to go together.

This is controversial stuff. It means congestion charging. It means green taxes. The sort of issues that politicians have been skirting round for years but have failed to grasp for fear of turning off the voting public.

There are signs that the mainstream parties are beginning to warm to the notion of green taxes, although it is global warming that has forced them on to the agenda, not the congestion on our roads.

The county council has £88m to spend on improving transport in Oxfordshire. It will fund a new platform at Oxford Station to increase capacity but, that aside, it is not going to fund any other new transport infrastructure. There will be no trams, for instance, nor will there be any new roads.

Junction improvements are being talked of, new bus lanes and perhaps a few more park-and-rides.

Meanwhile, more than 40,000 new homes will be built in this county over the next 15-20 years.

We do not need a survey to tell us that we are heading for more and greater congestion on Oxfordshire's roads unless there are some dramatic changes to national and local transport policies.