The alternatives are public transport, or to get on your bike

Nov 11 2005 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

We should introduce our own version of taxi driving `knowledge' in the North. Too many drivers don't know where they are headed, to our cost in time and money.

One picked up a business colleague from Central Station to take him to our offices at St James' Gate, a journey that should take around five minutes.

Forty-five minutes later he was dropped off at Citygate offices, from where he had to be walked round, hot and bothered, by a kindly accountancy partner.

Taxi drivers are the first people many visitors meet, and have a key role as ambassadors for the region. However pleasant they are, they should be able to find their way around Newcastle, famed for its compact centre.

A refresher course in getting from A to B could do more for our tourism potential than the promise of 'passionate places' painted on taxi bodies.

As cars are gradually squeezed out of city centres, taxis come into their own. The alternatives are public transport, or to get on your bike.

We are lucky to have a fairly successful underground system and a pretty switched-on bus network.

The Quayside shuttles are a great idea, eliminating the long walk up to the shops or to Gateshead quayside, so lunch can be enjoyed all the longer without one calorie being wasted with unnecessary exercise.

It is, however, far from perfect. Business and shopping trips can be gruesome if you have to wait in the rain for a bus that doesn't arrive, and you are weighed down with bulging briefcase or carrier bags.

If the parking charges slapped on our cars all went towards providing an improved public transport system for the city I would feel less murderous when removing yet another yellow ticket.

Newcastle, should, like London, have powers to regulate public transport as well as car parking. Revenue could go into a central pot to improve transport, so car-owners would at least see where their £30 fines are going.

Our city depends on a vibrant retail centre. It competes with free parking at MetroCentre and other out-of-town malls.

The current city centre parking and transport problems mean it will lose out badly unless we provide joined-up public transport strategies and taxi drivers who can drive us straight home.