Back in the Eighties, there were problems with traffic and air quality at Preston Circus, Brighton, so they built a bypass.

Its supporters said it would get all the traffic out of the town.

However, its opponents said what was really needed was improved public transport and that the bypass would only make things worse in the long run.

More than 20 years later, here we are again, with high levels of noxious fumes and the city gridlocked every time the sun shines.

The Argus editorial (June 21) concluded that the traffic problems from the London to Brighton bike ride were a result of everyone using their cars at the same time.

Supporters of park-and-ride banged the drum in favour of sacrificing more green space to the car.

Park-and-ride opponents pointed out the fact, obvious to everyone except counicl leader Ken Bodfish and his cronies, that the thousands of cars which gridlocked the city and backed up along the A23 wouldn't fit into a 900-space car park.

Hasn't the experience of the past 25 years made people realise traffic management schemes do little to increase road capacity?

Can't people see the obvious truth we simply don't have the space for everyone to use their cars at the same time. There isn't any space for future traffic growth at all.

So here is the answer. It's a radical alternative to park and ride called walk-and-ride.

When you step out of your front door, instead of getting in your car, walk to the nearest bus stop and get on a bus.

When the bus gets near your destination, instead of having to walk a long way from a car park, you walk a short distance from the bus stop to your destination.

When you want to return home, you just walk to the bus stop and get back on another bus to take you home again.

This saves you the frustration of sitting in traffic jams, from driving around looking for a parking space, from getting the car dented because the next car is parked too close and from having to park miles from where you want to go. It's got to be cheaper than park-and-ride too.

To make it work, Roger French, managing director of Brighton and Hove Bus Company, may have to provide a new bus routes or expand the bus fleet to cope.

But the great thing in favour of walk-and-ride is that we can start doing it today, without needing any public enquiries, or destroying the environment.

We could introduce it gradually, with the smart people choosing it sooner and the not so smart left sweating in their cars, watching the buses roll by, until they get its logic.

-Ian James, Portslade