Skipper

As I've become more environmentally aware I've found George Monbiot's articles unmissable. His most recent is apparently a low key idea but so obvious one wonders why no smart young entrepreneur has set up shop as Monbiot suggests and already made a fortune. He points out that the M25 has 790 miles of lanes.

If these lanes were fully used by cars carrying their average 1.6 passenger load at 60mph, the total carried would be 19000. However, coaches travelling at the same speed, each carrying 30 passengers, would increase capacity of this routeway to 250,000 and at a carbon emission reductions of 88% per person.

He proposes that, following the scheme produced by economist Alan Storkey, city centre coach stations be sold and the money used to establish theie equivalents at motorway junctions. Linked by urban buses, the service could be virtually constant on the M25 given dedicated bus lanes and could be sustained by 200 vehicles. Such a service would revolutionize transport within the UK, making it cheap, reliable and safe.

Monbiot is disappointed that nowhere in its 436 pages does Rod Eddington's much discussed report on transpot does the humble coach gain a mention. I think he's right, don't you?