Time to Invest in Our Rail Network ; Letters

Summary

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I NOTE that the Pounds 60 million Exepress guided busway scheme has been dropped (Hitech transport plan axed for second time, Echo, February 11). This was described as a 'tramlike, optically guided transport system... serving St David's Station, Marsh Barton, the East Devon growth points such as Exeter Science Park, Skypark, Exeter International Airport and Cranbrook' May I point out that there is a perfectly good non-optically guided rapid transport system linking most of these points already in position? It is called the railway, which already reliably handles about two million commuter passengers a year in the area mentioned, largely using 30- year-old investment. With rather less money than that proposed for the busway system, it would be possible to generate an upgraded fast and frequent rail commuter service which would cope with current congestion as well as future expansion merely by updating the existing rail hardware into the present century.

Why are the authorities hereabouts so reluctant to consider rail investment, for example with new stations at Newcourt/ Rydon Lane, Exeter Skyport and Marsh Barton, and train services to match, when we have just been told to be proud of a cyclist/pedestrian bridge costing Pounds 5 million serving an as-yet empty space, and there is no guided busway system in Britain which has yet been brought in on tine and within budget? In these times of economic hardship, the available investment money will only go to those areas which shout loudest.

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Time to Invest in Our Rail Network ; Letters

Unless all sections of the local commu...

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