Quote from Rob Murphy, speaking at the Enquiry in Public into the regional spatial strategy on Tuesday in Exeter.

"I'm with Wiltshire County Council ... [snip] .... We believe that a bus based system offers the best flexibility to deal with [public transport in] a modern society"

The question that we had on the table was "whether or not the draft RSS gave adequate weight to the contribution that the EXISTING rail network might give to the reduction of CAR travel."    Rob was unique amongst the 30 or so people seated around the table ... he was the only speaker who did not indicate that the RSS should make increased reference to even existing rail.

I appreciate that brand new rail routes are hideously expensive, but is seems perverse to me that our county council is persuing the policy of upgrading the A350 route from the Warminster area up to the M4 (total cost estimated at between 200 million and 300 million at today's prices) when the EXISTING rail corridor can take a proportion of the traffic and cut the road upgrades needed to a fraction of this cost.

It's said that a doubling of rail passengers only puts back the need for road improvements by a year (I think it was the Highways Agency guy who made that point).    With 600% growth in five years from 2001 .... if that were to be sustatined (and there's no reason why it's not possible with the will) the major road improvements could be put off for the foreseeable future. 

Beyond the foreseeable future?  I can't foresee ... but unless there's a technology development, I would tend to bet towards rail being greener and more the way to go thatn private car!