Letter: Red Routes issues continue to inflame pages of The Star

Independent businesses on Abbeydale Road are worried about the effect of Sheffield Council's plans for red line bus priority routes

The most depressing aspect of this heated debate is that people involved seem to refuse to understand the finer points of the issue. A series of possibilities are proposed, not one single, firm, take-it-or-leave-it proposal.

The possible measures include some uncontroversial minor suggestions of lane changes to improve traffic flow, of bus priority measures to improve bus punctuality. But these have been lost in a storm of anger and extreme interpretations.

There is a list of possibilities which were put forward by Council officers for consideration by councillors and the public to try to find a way to improve the daily traffic jams and dangerous air pollution on Abbeydale and Ecclesall Roads:

- Red Routes are simply a way of installing cameras to control illegal parking. Cameras are not legal on roads with just yellow lines.

- Red Routes could be in force for anything UP TO 12hrs, but could be for less.

- Red Routes can have parking spaces and loading bays. Just because they are continuous red lines in other places doesn’t mean they always have to be.

There is no denying that walking, cycling, or driving on the two main roads is often unpleasant: too much traffic, smelly air that we now know worsens several serious illnesses.

We should know that the situation can only get worse because the number of cars in use keeps increasing.

What positive proposals do the opponents of Red Routes suggest to improve the situation?

H Greaves, what would you do?

Have you looked at the original document to see if there’s anything there to make life better along Abbeydale Road?

One thing’s for sure: our dependency on motor vehicles has huge downsides which we need to deal with sooner or later if we care about the health and survival of our planet and all its life forms.

So, H Greaves, rather than all your negativity, using words like ‘smug’, ‘selfish’ and talking about people’s ‘arrogance’, engage constructively and look for ways of reducing the problem.

Sheffield Star, you can do a lot to improve things: rather than simply reproducing the vitriol people send you, how about encouraging a constructive debate?

Why not print an interview with a council officer who can tell us the facts?