Six years of Labour government have made a bad transport situation worse. David Drew is right to talk (Citizen 20/11/03) about the need to improve our transport systems. Sadly it doesn't look like his government are the ones to do it.

The Birmingham Relief toll road opens next year despite Labour promising to scrap this when they were in opposition. Research has clearly shown building roads encourages traffic, yet Labour have just announced a £5 billion programme of new and widened road construction. We know this is not the way forward.

Similarly our government subsidises aviation by £10billion each year (ie we each pay £182.45 annually to the aviation industry). This is also not the way. It is not right that those who don't fly are subsidising those who do, and those who fly occasionally are subsidising those who fly a lot.

Meanwhile our rail system continues to be the laughing stock of Europe. Our fares are amongst the highest and trains are dirty and unreliable. A national cycling target of tripling cycling use is dead in the water, when we could have cities like Copenhagen where a third of all trips are made on bikes. Our residential streets are becoming traffic sewers and our villages face thundering traffic. This is not the way.

A new Transport 2000 report , "Rural transport Futures" shows there is an alternative. Following best practice from other countries the report shows we can have world class integrated and affordable public transport, zero tolerance for road crashes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 30%, world class walking and cycling facilities and make our streets safe, secure and exciting places for children to live.

Better still there is enough cash around in current transport budgets and in terminated perverse subsidies to pay for the improvements needed. All we need now is more Green Party politicians to get on with the job.

Philip Booth, Gloucestershire Green Party.