AT a time when the transport debate rages as never before, amid a growing sense of persecution among drivers, East Lancashire is given an exciting vision of travel without the car in the coming decade - and of it being made preferable.

Envisaged to be operating by as soon as 2010 are "airline quality" mini-trains providing fast, clean and efficient services, calling at scores of new stations in our region

They will be linked at new key interchanges in our towns with bus services that will reach even to people living in the most distant parts of East Lancashire.

And timetabling, connections and information will be so efficient that inhibiting aspects of present-day public transport - of passengers waiting around in dirty, dreary places in rain and snow - will be dispelled.

But what is inspiring about this concept, which was delivered yesterday by top transport consultants to council chiefs and key agencies, is not just that it really is achievable or that funding such a transport revolution will come largely from the vast increases in government spending planned for public transport.

Rather, it is that it has the positive thrust that this newspaper has always maintained is necessary to make public transport a credible alternative to travel by car and for the battle against congestion and pollution to be waged with success.

It will make buses, trains and trams actually more attractive than cars.

That prospect can only be achieved by making public transport services and the facilities that go with them accessible, convenient, clean, safe, cheap, reliable, fast and frequent.

It is because they are far from this at present that people cling to their cars.

And when, at the same time, negative pressures are applied to motorists by government, road planners and councils, in the form of swingeing petrol prices, road tax, parking charges and restrictions and over-prescriptive traffic-calming the motorists' resistance increases along with the potential for a political backlash against the coercive approach to getting people out of their cars.

This East Lancashire vision is built on persuasion - and that is the direction in which the transport revolution has to go to succeed.

Let the government, town halls and planners steer that way now.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.