Sir – Rail passengers in Britain have increased ever since 1995. Since 2004, passengers using Oxford station have risen 1.43 million: 39 per cent.

If Marylebone trains reach Oxford and electrification improves Paddington trains, there will be pressure for passengers to increase much more. Buses have also increased their share of travel to and from central Oxford: from 27 per cent in 1991 to 53 per cent in 2005.

Joint ticketing and timetabling should increase this. But the 1987 Gloucester Green redevelopment halved the size of Oxford bus station, and pedestrianising Cornmarket and removing stops from Queen Street reduced connections between buses.

Numerous parts of Oxford lack a bus link with the railway, and the station forecourt and Frideswide Square haven’t enough room to give them one.

Oxford rail station can accommodate 588 bicycles. However, passengers need much more cycle parking plus changing facilities and cycle hire. Dr Graham Jones fears a new platform and booking hall on the wrong side of Botley Road for Paddington trains plus new Chiltern platforms north of the present station would be “a sticking plaster job” (Letters, August 4).

He’s right: they would not add enough space for more buses and cycles and would not future-proof station capacity, eg to reopen the Witney/Carterton and Abingdon railways.

In the 1940s, the Great Western and LMS railways planned a six-platform Oxford station on an expanded GWR site. This would leave the LMS site vacant, so Oxford City Council’s planning consultant Thomas Sharp recommended moving the bus station there to vacate Gloucester Green.

This was still feasible until 1999, when BRB Residuary was allowed to sell railway land to build Saïd Business School and Rewley Road housing. Since then, Oxpens has been the only place for an adequate 21st-century transport hub for Oxford. The Department for Transport must secure Oxpens for future transport use.

Hugh Jaeger, Oxford