Guided bus doomed to failure

I WOULD like to take issue with a view expressed in Roger Cox's letter (December 10) that the guided bus will "undoubtedly meet its specified objectives".

According to the Cambridgeshire County Council website these objectives are to provide a reliable, fast and frequent service, a genuine public transport alternative to driving in to Cambridge on the busy A14.

The guided bus is, on the contrary, doomed to failure and a costly one at that.

Even those who are promoting the guided bus speak of a journey time of 20 minutes from St Ives to Cambridge Science Park, and how long from there to the city centre, which is where most people actually want to go? It can already take half an hour to travel from the Science Park to the city centre by bus, and that could mean a journey time of about 50 minutes from St Ives to the centre of Cambridge - 15 minutes longer than it does now, without the guided bus. How can that possibly attract people out of their cars?

And, if you are travelling from Huntingdon, the picture is even worse, as part of the journey from Huntingdon to St Ives is the most tedious part of the entire trip to Cambridge and itself takes half an hour at least. Nobody is going to give up driving from Huntingdon to Cambridge because of the guided bus.

Having dealt with the "fast" part of the stated objectives, I now turn to the "reliable and frequent" bit. Stagecoach is struggling at the time of writing to provide a reliable service on the 55 route (which will become the guided bus) and this is with a frequency of only three buses per hour, as opposed for the six envisaged for the guided bus.

So how Mr Cox can be so sure of the eventual success of the guided bus amazes me. On the other hand it was interesting to read a view in favour of the scheme as it is the first, apparently non-official, note of approval for it that I have come across.

I for one am dreading the day that it opens.

SEAN HICKIN

St Peter's Road

Huntingdon