Travel planning

I am surprised that David Fagan of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (Letters, 27 March) in responding to my article (Opinion, 25 March) should hold up the Partick Interchange as an example of SPT "excellence" given that completion of this project was wildly late and over budget.

Meanwhile SPT does not provide "capital investment" for transport; the taxpayer does and SPT's stewardship of that public money is seriously open to question.

As for Mr Fagan's boast that the organisation spends 33 million on transport taking 49,000 students to school every term day, when I was at school we pupils climbed aboard a "red" SMT service bus, paid our tuppence or thruppence to the conductor and that was it – no need of a multimillion-pound quango.

Finally, I note that SPT's slogan is "joining up journeys" yet it would seem that – based on its recently exposed expenses claims – the top brass prefer to use the private car, rather than public transport, for business mileage within the SPT region.

KEN HOUSTON

Princes Street

Edinburgh