Transport is Important- article in Southern Daily Echo - 20 November 2002

Transport plays an important part in determining our everyday quality of life. Whether travelling to work or the shops, visiting friends or going out for a day trip, the local transport network will impact upon how smoothly we move from A to B.

We all have views on what needs to be done to keep the traffic flowing freely, the buses running regularly and the trains on time. But we need to think about how any changes made will improve the quality of the local environment, improve access to transport to keep people moving, the cost of congestion to the local economy and the need to have a safe transport network.

Southampton has strong links to the rest of the UK through road and rail and the rest of the world through the port and airport. To maintain our status as the south coast's premier city we need to decide what sort of city we want Southampton to be and how transport can take us there - following the example of many leading European cities.

To try and find out what you think about transport in Southampton I have devised a short questionnaire. It will tell me what you think has changed in the last few years and what needs to be done in the future.

The results from returned questionnaires will be fed into a transport summit called 'Transport in Southampton: a vision for 2025' taking place in March 2003. This summit will bring together transport users and providers, allowing them the opportunity to take a step back and think about the need to develop a clear vision for Southampton's transport network.