WE’VE less than a decade to slash carbon dioxide emissions to limit climate change. Increasing world demand and peaking production will increase fuel prices. The UK must reduce fuel imports.

Ninety per cent of UK journeys are less than 10 miles. We need more walking, cycling, buses, trams and local trains. For longer journeys we need more rail routes.

Eighty five per cent of UK transport emissions are from cars, only seven per cent are from short-haul aviation, so reducing car use is the priority. But busy main railways are crowded and a 17 per cent reduction in motorway traffic would double rail traffic.

The Chiltern Line could carry more and bigger trains to the West Midlands. The disused Great Central line could reopen to the East Midlands. Regional links such as Oxford–Cambridge must reopen.

Busy railways must be electrified and new ones must save energy. Doubling train speed quadruples energy use per mile. Most European highspeed lines have a 186-mph top speed. HS2’s proposed 255-mph trains would waste electricity and could increase emissions.

HS2 would waste time stopping at Old Oak Common in west London for a Heathrow connection that only one per cent of passengers would use.

Old Oak is the only reason to route HS2 through the Chilterns and 12 miles of tunnels instead of following the M1.

Completing HS2 to Leeds and Manchester would waste £34bn, take decades, and add too little new rail capacity, too late. Construction and running costs would make fares exorbitant.

Bob Johnston’s support for HS2 is environmentally, socially and economically mistaken.

HUGH JAEGER Park Close Oxford