Dear Alex and Phil,

I understand why you did not show up to talk about public transport today. Being professional politicians, I appreciate that you are very busy men. Buses running late, not connecting or not showing up are going to cost you precious time out of your day. Time is money.

Although the morning 20A turned up on time, my evening bus was 14 minutes late (or 16 minutes early, depending how you look at it). I understand that, as busy men, an extra quarter of an hour at home with your family is important in the evening.

Being men of means, you probably also have a fairly good comfort zone in terms of rising petrol costs. The rising cost of fuel would be a small price to pay for the convenience of getting to work on time and getting home at a reliable hour.

Unfortunately, many of your current (or prospective) constituents cannot easily absorb the cost of rising fuels prices. Even more unfortunately, they do not have viable alternative transport arrangements. This means they will have to take their spending money out of local businesses to pay for petrol to get themselves to work and their children to school.

What this also means that with the increasing number of single passenger cars on our roads, your governments will have to pay more to upgrade roads, which also means using taxpayer money to indirectly destroy our air quality. We will also be forced to add further to greenhouse gases which will continue to send up our insurance premiums and increase the threat of severe storms and bushfires.

Fortunately, all is not yet lost. The Greens have some really good ideas about flexible transport solutions. For example, we could make buses available to community and youth group in non-peak times. We could have small shuttle buses doing on-demand services around train stations and major fixed bus routes. We could have dynamic bus routes based around a booking system. The options are endless, but first you must acknowledge that we must take a collective, bipartisan approach to fixing up our communities. And we must also stand up to the vested interests and stuffy old ways of thinking within the traditional party system.

If not, you may live to see a retirement where you regretted not turning Green sooner.

May you walk lightly upon our planet.

Glen Ryman