You can appreciate the competing views about a historic change from a one-way street system; pedestrian safety, congestion, traffic snarls.

It raises the question, that if the one-way system has served Launceston city so well, why the need for change? Many inhabitants have never experienced a two-way system in the city.

It would normally work the other way, moving from a two-way system to one-way as a means of clearing the city of commuter traffic.

Over the decades governments in Tasmania have neglected urban transport. Hobart becomes gridlocked, even in one-way streets, because the growth in traffic is outstripping spending on urban transport.

Launceston is not there yet. The city has a traffic thoroughfare and highway stretching from Breadalbane to Newnham, but a two-way system in the CBD may clog up the city, especially in peak times, when really Launceston is a historic city begging for advanced strategies to clear the city of traffic.

Brisbane Street, from St John Street to George Street, should be cleared of non-commercial traffic. Instead of a traffic solution, why not more emphasis on public transport throughout the CBD, including trams. Yes, that lumbering, antiquated transport system, that continues to thrive in Melbourne.

Why not provide free public transport in the city, with more Tiger buses. London imposes a levy on vehicles using the city. The same could apply in Launceston.

These proposals deserve investigation. But, let's face it. The biggest impediment to an efficient urban transport system in our cities is the proliferation of single and multistorey car parks.

They make money and the way they make money is through parking. Until we wean ourselves off this entrenched, flourishing and ugly industry of brutalist architecture, all the urban planning and reform in the world is no more than a mediocre response.