CRITICISING plans today for millions of pounds to be spent on upgrading the North West's road network, Green Party campaigners can afford to be idealistic about the need to curb traffic -- whereas the people in power have to grapple with reality.

And that actuality entails delivering road improvements that not only contend with the growth in traffic, but also ones that steer it and its harmful effects away from people and communities.

We see that in the major by-pass plan at the heart of Lancashire County Council's spending bids, while similar plans of equal social and environmental merit could easily be put forward elsewhere -- such as the dead-in-the-water by-pass scheme to relieve the East Lancashire border villages between the M65 and the A59 and Blackburn's need for a complete inner-ring road to remove through traffic from its choked centre. Just these snapshots make it apparent that not all road schemes are bad -- a view that the government has itself come round to in lifting the hatchet it had previously brought down on scores of such schemes nationwide.

But as the brake comes off, we have the Greens' transport spokesman claiming that it is once again business as usual for North West councils who see more traffic-encouraging asphalt and concrete as the answer to every transport problem while paying lip-service to road safety and delivering a safe and pleasant public transport system.

This is denied today. But, yes, the car is still king -- because we are still a long way from having a comprehensive public transport system that is the alternative. What is needed, surely, is a dynamic public and private partnership to deliver it much more quickly and extensive central subsidies to both kick-start it and sustain it.

That is a reality that government, councils, business and taxpayers will also have to grasp.