IT seems strange that it has taken five years of talk and the expenditure of £1,000,000 of public money to decide that the area is too hilly for a tramway system.

One look at it might have sufficed to reach this conclusion.

On the other hand, the decision is puzzling, because there used to be trams in Blackburn, and it is unlikely that the contours have changed much in a mere half century.

All that this exercise had produced is the threadbare suggestion from one of our local rulers that we should have more bus lanes. It seems odd that you, in your editorial of March 14, should alienate a good proportion of your readers by agreeing with it.

Bus lanes are a waste of road space because most of the time they are empty.

They can be good for revenue, though, because you can photograph and fine drivers who trespass on them.

Bus travel is slow because the driver has to collect fares as well as drive the bus, so the journey takes longer as the number of passengers increases.

But if conductors were introduced, the cost would become more prohibitive than it is already. I am comparing the £1.10 cost of a bus journey of about a mile-and-a-half in this area with the £39 for a return trip by air between Luton and Northern Italy.

A solution might be to introduce the system whereby you have to get a ticket before boarding the bus.

T J LONGSTAFF, Gorse Road, Blackburn.