Future Transport in Cities. (Moving People).

By Brian Richards. London: Spon Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]24.99

Is your journey really necessary? To a Londoner, the old wartime adage has never seemed more appropriate. As I inch towards senior citizenhood -- with the bus pass almost within my trembling grasp -- I feel less and less inclined to go anywhere.

Consider the alternatives. The tube? Words fail me. The taxi? A collector's item, especially after dark. The bicyle/moped/scooter? Only for the intrepid or the suicidal. The car? All the parking spaces are taken. The bus? An agreeable form of transport, certainly, provided you can secure a seat (downstairs, left of the driver) on one of the dwindling supply of Routemasters, and provided you are prepared to endure what Colin Buchanan memorably called the 'patient wretchedness of the bus queue'.

Shank's pony, then? Foot slogging is still the most reliable, safest and -- over short distances -- the quickest form of transport available. But what about the elderly, the infirm, the heavy laden, and those (a majority) who have to travel over five miles each day to and from work? We did it cheerfully after the October hurricane in 1987. But would we, like Wemmick in Great Expectations, be prepared to do it everyday?

Brian Richards' absorbing survey examines the alternatives to people-moving now being tried across the world. This is not a polemic: we have enough of those already. It is something more valuable -- an anthology of case histories. Most experiments, predictably, are taking place outside the UK. Medium-sized cities like Bilbao, Ottawa or Strasbourg fare better than London.

The French, in particular, seem to be about ten years ahead of us here -- as they are in other essential aspects of contemporary life, like football or public medicine. How our poor, ineffectual Mayor must envy his opposite number in Paris! He should read this stimulating, judicious and surprisingly optimistic book.