I have watched and suffered with mounting indignation as local authority planners and transport consultants have striven to choke the very life from Brighton and Hove through the imposition of humps, chicanes, untimely roadworks, one-way systems that lead everybody away from where they want to be, parking restrictions, bus stops that jut into the carriageway, empty bus lanes, empty cycle lanes and even emptier "cycle boxes" at traffic lights.

Everywhere, it seems, perfectly good roads are being redesigned to deny their use to paying road-users who simply want to get from A to B (whether it be by bus, taxi or car).

Why is this happening and why do we continue to vote for the people who use our money to pay for it?

Do we want to reduce congestion and pollution and raise city revenue? Hell, yes. Then move traffic (pedestrian, public and private) more efficiently by allowing it to move in the first place. Congestion is not something that simply results from increased traffic, particularly when you have a planning authority that reacts to this increase by slowing everything down.

Are traffic lights always more efficient than roundabouts? Are pelican crossings always safer than zebra crossings? Do bus lanes and cycle lanes do anything other than reduce an already cramped infrastructure? Is there really a "conflict" between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists?

Aren't the majority of cyclists and pedestrians also motorists? Didn't most pedestrians in the city arrive by car, bus or taxi? Don't all these constituents - single-issue activists apart - share the same unambitious desire to arrive at their destination with minimal fuss? Is there some hidden agenda? A congestion charge similar to London's proposal, perhaps?

The answers to these questions are simple and self-evident but their application seems to have become more and more clouded.

I suspect a cowed and apathetic constituency has allowed itself to be dictated to by a local legislature grown used to doing whatever it pleases.

A famous screen hero once remarked: "Nobody ever tried to p**s down my back and pretend it was raining."

Brighton and Hove's residents are as smart as he was and I, for one, will be shopping in other Sussex towns that welcome us. I urge residents in a similar frame of mind to do the same.

There are two good reasons why we ought to put up with anything: 1, It makes life better. 2, It makes life better.

-B Phelan, Hangleton Road, Hove