Leeds Tram Article

[YorkshireBear]

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...system-leeds-business-leader-claims-1-8867917

Found this article

"Leeds should revisit once again plans for a mass transit service linking the city centre with the South Bank, a top business leader has claimed. The new president of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, Paula Dillon, said that a tram route between the city centre and Stourton would increase the viability of the South Bank development and help bring people from south Leeds into the heart of the city. Leeds is the largest city in Western Europe with no mass transit system and previous attempts to create a local transport infrastructure, first with the Supertram system and then a Trolleybus scheme, have both ended in failure. However Ms Dillon said a smaller-scale route, solely concentrating on south Leeds would add further credibility to plans to expand the South Bank and that past disappointments to deliver a mass transit system should not deter Leeds from revisiting the plan. She said: “I think there is a great deal of appetite and interest in the scheme, not just from business but from ordinary people who feel let down in the past. Why not have something really ambitious, rather than a few extra buses? “It serves an area of the city that is not sufficiently connected to the city centre. If we can access Holbeck through to Stourton and give them something really top class that makes people feel good about coming in, why not?” Paula Dillon, President of Leeds Chamber Commerce. Ms Dillon added that as chamber boss she wanted to see more women involved in STEM professions and to improve the layout of Leeds city station. Leader of Leeds City Council Councillor Judith Blake said: “As part of the Leeds Transport Strategy, delivering a rapid mass-transit system remains a key ambition for the city and the wider Leeds City Region.” "

I have looked through previous threads on the tram project for Leeds here but just thought this article prompted further discussion.

Having moved to Leeds in 2010 and lived in various areas and now the city centre, it has always struck me that the public transport system is poor. I have looked into the old tram proposal for the 3No. lines emanating from a city centre loop.

With the regeneration that is currently being targeted and the state of public transport in the city I think it is something that should be looked at again, I commented as such in the recent air quality consultation. Of the three lines that were originally proposed I think the Headingley one is a non starter. I lived there for a few years and I do not understand how they would construct it. The trams would just get stuck in traffic too. Seems pointless.

The other two lines however seem to be relatively practical, minor tweaking here and there. I would also try to add in a White Rose link too from the Belle Isle direction. The South of the city is in desperate need of something to try and reinvigorate it, there is generally more space to accommodate towards the South as well. A future extension towards Chapel Allerton if it can reasonably be accomodated would I imagine be a good area to go to as well.

Of course everything should be planned to try and fit into the wider area and so future extensions should be considered initially to help inform the design. So Bradford, Wakefield and Dewsbury should be part of the decision making process as it is not beyond the realms for it to extend out towards their zones of influence.

If we were being really ambitious I would be suggesting a Dusseldorf style U-Bahn (Most tram routes funnel into two tunnels under the city centre but emerge shortly outside the centre and run on street from there) under the city centre but slow and steady wins the race I think.

I am aware of the scale of work it would require and the cost, but there are some noises slowly coming out about it. It has also been mentioned in regards to HS2. If the Northern Powerhouse is a thing still, if we want the Northern cities to compete they absolutely have to have modern transport fit for the 21st century. I don't think largest city without a light/metro rail in Europe is a title Leeds wants or deserves.

 

[Goldie]

As a frequent visitor to Leeds, I think one of the city's strengths is the relatively comprehensive suburban rail system. The electrified Aire Valley lines are particularly impressive. I wonder whether it would be better for the PTE to invest in expanding, upgrading and electrifying the suburban rail system, using the Aire Valley lines as a benchmark in terms of journey times and quality of rolling stock. The PTE could look at reviving and emphasising the Metrotrain brand, and apply it to the improved network only. The route to Harrogate seems like an obvious candidate for this treatment; likewise the line to Bradford through Bramley and New Pudsey.

I live in Sheffield, and while I have always enjoyed using Supertram, the system is coming up against its fundamental limitations now. End to end journey times are not great, capacity is limited (and always will be, given that the trams often have to share the same roads as the rest of Sheffield's traffic). Given those limitations, I'd questions whether spending money on building a similarly limited light rail system in Leeds is the best use of limited funds.

 

[gordonthemoron]

First buses in Leeds are fine, however there is a serious lack of timetable information

 

[Tetchytyke]

As a frequent visitor to Leeds, I think one of the city's strengths is the relatively comprehensive suburban rail system.

The suburban rail system in West Yorkshire is great at linking different towns together, but doesn't really do much for the city of Leeds itself. There are surprisingly few stations actually within the city itself and, for those most of those stations, the rail service is pretty limited (Cottingley is hourly, Kirkstall is hourly, Cross Gates, Burley Park and Headingley are half-hourly, even Bramley has a 30-minute gap at the "wrong" side of the hour). The vast majority of the city is not served by rail, even where the railway line actually goes through the suburb (e.g. Middleton, Beeston, Halton).

WYPTE needed to be much more on the ball about 15-20 years ago, when Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield gained their trams. Instead they listened to the lobbying from First and chucked huge sums of money up the wall on the guided busways on York Road and Scott Hall Road that are fundamentally useless. It's going to be very hard to now move away from buses having spent all that money on that infrastructure. And the big problem with buses is that they are polluting and they get stuck in all the same traffic.

 

[Busaholic]

And the big problem with buses is that they are polluting and they get stuck in all the same traffic.

And First don't care, because they operate most of them. Even though it'd be unfair to blame First for trams not happening, the same is not true of the scaled-down trolleybus plans, also now junked, which First comprehensively rubbished: their own 'plans' involving Borismasters should have been scrutinised by people who actually knew something about the subject, who could have torn their arguments apart.

 

[Dentonian]

The suburban rail system in West Yorkshire is great at linking different towns together, but doesn't really do much for the city of Leeds itself. There are surprisingly few stations actually within the city itself and, for those most of those stations, the rail service is pretty limited (Cottingley is hourly, Kirkstall is hourly, Cross Gates, Burley Park and Headingley are half-hourly, even Bramley has a 30-minute gap at the "wrong" side of the hour). The vast majority of the city is not served by rail, even where the railway line actually goes through the suburb (e.g. Middleton, Beeston, Halton).

WYPTE needed to be much more on the ball about 15-20 years ago, when Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield gained their trams. Instead they listened to the lobbying from First and chucked huge sums of money up the wall on the guided busways on York Road and Scott Hall Road that are fundamentally useless. It's going to be very hard to now move away from buses having spent all that money on that infrastructure. And the big problem with buses is that they are polluting and they get stuck in all the same traffic.

Listening to too much middle income car/rail lobby inspired BBC propaganda, methinks. Funny how buses weren't seen as polluting in the 1970s but now that Euro6 has massively reduced both NoX and PM10 emissions, and the number of buses in urban areas outside London is barely 70% of the 1986 total, suddenly they are the instruments of the devil.

BBC Northwest just trot this snobbery out, but Granada at least did some research (as echoed elsewhere in local media) and this revealed that of the top 10 traffic borne pollution hot spots in Greater Manchester, only one (A5103 Princess Road/Princess Parkway) had more than 4 (each way) registered bus journeys per hour.

And back in Leeds, you have one of only two First subsidiaries that consistently invest in new buses - the other one being Bristol. Plus, Arriva also seem to consistently invest at levels only seen in other cities beginning with "L", so I would think per passenger, Leeds buses probably produce less pollution than any other city in the UK outside London.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Listening to too much middle income car/rail lobby inspired BBC propaganda, methinks. Funny how buses weren't seen as polluting in the 1970s but now that Euro6 has massively reduced both NoX and PM10 emissions, and the number of buses in urban areas outside London is barely 70% of the 1986 total, suddenly they are the instruments of the devil.

It isn't a new thing, Sheffield had one of the worst PM10 levels in the country...on a bus-only street.

Euro 6 has helped, sure, but First Leeds are also still running Wright Axcess Flolines. From 1998. Along with 1999 ALX400s from other First subsidiaries in Yorkshire.

Buses are heavily polluting, inefficient and sit in all the same traffic. Trams were, and are, the solution for Leeds. Instead, we got a guided bus lane down York Road that only First get to use. The one on Scott Hall Road is even more useless.

It's the same in Bradford, where we don't even have the shiny new buses.

 

[daodao]

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/new...system-leeds-business-leader-claims-1-8867917

Found this article

"Leeds should revisit once again plans for a mass transit service linking the city centre with the South Bank, a top business leader has claimed. The new president of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce, Paula Dillon, said that a tram route between the city centre and Stourton would increase the viability of the South Bank development and help bring people from south Leeds into the heart of the city. Leeds is the largest city in Western Europe with no mass transit system and previous attempts to create a local transport infrastructure, first with the Supertram system and then a Trolleybus scheme, have both ended in failure. However Ms Dillon said a smaller-scale route, solely concentrating on south Leeds would add further credibility to plans to expand the South Bank and that past disappointments to deliver a mass transit system should not deter Leeds from revisiting the plan. She said: “I think there is a great deal of appetite and interest in the scheme, not just from business but from ordinary people who feel let down in the past. Why not have something really ambitious, rather than a few extra buses? “It serves an area of the city that is not sufficiently connected to the city centre. If we can access Holbeck through to Stourton and give them something really top class that makes people feel good about coming in, why not?” Paula Dillon, President of Leeds Chamber Commerce. Ms Dillon added that as chamber boss she wanted to see more women involved in STEM professions and to improve the layout of Leeds city station. Leader of Leeds City Council Councillor Judith Blake said: “As part of the Leeds Transport Strategy, delivering a rapid mass-transit system remains a key ambition for the city and the wider Leeds City Region.” "

I have looked through previous threads on the tram project for Leeds here but just thought this article prompted further discussion.

Having moved to Leeds in 2010 and lived in various areas and now the city centre, it has always struck me that the public transport system is poor. I have looked into the old tram proposal for the 3No. lines emanating from a city centre loop.

With the regeneration that is currently being targeted and the state of public transport in the city I think it is something that should be looked at again, I commented as such in the recent air quality consultation. Of the three lines that were originally proposed I think the Headingley one is a non starter. I lived there for a few years and I do not understand how they would construct it. The trams would just get stuck in traffic too. Seems pointless.

The other two lines however seem to be relatively practical, minor tweaking here and there. I would also try to add in a White Rose link too from the Belle Isle direction. The South of the city is in desperate need of something to try and reinvigorate it, there is generally more space to accommodate towards the South as well. A future extension towards Chapel Allerton if it can reasonably be accomodated would I imagine be a good area to go to as well.

Of course everything should be planned to try and fit into the wider area and so future extensions should be considered initially to help inform the design. So Bradford, Wakefield and Dewsbury should be part of the decision making process as it is not beyond the realms for it to extend out towards their zones of influence.

If we were being really ambitious I would be suggesting a Dusseldorf style U-Bahn (Most tram routes funnel into two tunnels under the city centre but emerge shortly outside the centre and run on street from there) under the city centre but slow and steady wins the race I think.

I am aware of the scale of work it would require and the cost, but there are some noises slowly coming out about it. It has also been mentioned in regards to HS2. If the Northern Powerhouse is a thing still, if we want the Northern cities to compete they absolutely have to have modern transport fit for the 21st century. I don't think largest city without a light/metro rail in Europe is a title Leeds wants or deserves.

Leeds missed the boat 65 years ago when it abandoned its first generation trams, instead of developing them further with city centre reserved streets or even tunnels. While there was much reserved track in some suburbs, many of these roads have now been widened to use the old central tram reservations. There are no local suburban rail lines, or old rail trackbeds available for trams, to form the backbone of a system.

There is no realistic prospect of new tram systems being developed in any English city that does not already have them.

 

[Kingsbury Jn.]

Listening to too much middle income car/rail lobby inspired BBC propaganda, methinks. Funny how buses weren't seen as polluting in the 1970s but now that Euro6 has massively reduced both NoX and PM10 emissions, and the number of buses in urban areas outside London is barely 70% of the 1986 total, suddenly they are the instruments of the devil.

BBC Northwest just trot this snobbery out, but Granada at least did some research (as echoed elsewhere in local media) and this revealed that of the top 10 traffic borne pollution hot spots in Greater Manchester, only one (A5103 Princess Road/Princess Parkway) had more than 4 (each way) registered bus journeys per hour.

And back in Leeds, you have one of only two First subsidiaries that consistently invest in new buses - the other one being Bristol. Plus, Arriva also seem to consistently invest at levels only seen in other cities beginning with "L", so I would think per passenger, Leeds buses probably produce less pollution than any other city in the UK outside London.

https://laqm.defra.gov.uk/public-health/pm25.html

This article seems to consider PM2.5 particulates as the more concerning, health-wise,
in urban environments.

 

[Wirewiper]

Leeds has the unenviable accolade of being the largest European city without a tram, light rail or heavy-rail Metro system.

Had Leeds developed on the continental model, its system would have been rejuvenated to take high-capacity articulated trams, the system would have been expanded considerably, possibly including into Bradford, and many of the city's suburban rail lines would have been brought into the network with tram-trains, or simply converted. And yes, there would have been a tram line into Leeds Bradford Airport years ago.

 

[Dentonian]

https://laqm.defra.gov.uk/public-health/pm25.html

This article seems to consider PM2.5 particulates as the more concerning, health-wise,
in urban environments.

Well, how convenient! The bus industry (ie. the fare paying passenger) has been spending millions on reducing PM10s (and NOx) with major advances including and especially Euro6, so now they say its wasted, and buses are far more of a problem than they were in the 60s/70s. A bit like DDA; getting the bus passenger to stump up millions to pay for bus companies to go 100% low floor/easy access, and its all a waste in some areas because the relevant Authorities refuse to punish bus stop blocking!

As regards "pollution", HGVs are also diesel powered (with similar advances towards Euro6 no doubt), as are taxis, and many, many times more private cars than were even 25 years ago. Not to mention diesel trains! But no, it seems buses have gone from being 10% of the problem a few decades ago, to 16% of the problem now, according to a BBC "Reality check" a few months back. Sorry, the figures simply don't add up! I would go on to explain why this attitude will cost everybody in future, but all people are interested in is protecting the powerful lobbies and vote chasing politicians.

 

[Goldie]

The suburban rail system in West Yorkshire is great at linking different towns together, but doesn't really do much for the city of Leeds itself. There are surprisingly few stations actually within the city itself and, for those most of those stations, the rail service is pretty limited (Cottingley is hourly, Kirkstall is hourly, Cross Gates, Burley Park and Headingley are half-hourly, even Bramley has a 30-minute gap at the "wrong" side of the hour). The vast majority of the city is not served by rail, even where the railway line actually goes through the suburb (e.g. Middleton, Beeston, Halton).

WYPTE needed to be much more on the ball about 15-20 years ago, when Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield gained their trams. Instead they listened to the lobbying from First and chucked huge sums of money up the wall on the guided busways on York Road and Scott Hall Road that are fundamentally useless. It's going to be very hard to now move away from buses having spent all that money on that infrastructure. And the big problem with buses is that they are polluting and they get stuck in all the same traffic.

The suburban rail system in West Yorkshire is great at linking different towns together, but doesn't really do much for the city of Leeds itself. There are surprisingly few stations actually within the city itself and, for those most of those stations, the rail service is pretty limited (Cottingley is hourly, Kirkstall is hourly, Cross Gates, Burley Park and Headingley are half-hourly, even Bramley has a 30-minute gap at the "wrong" side of the hour). The vast majority of the city is not served by rail, even where the railway line actually goes through the suburb (e.g. Middleton, Beeston, Halton).

WYPTE needed to be much more on the ball about 15-20 years ago, when Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Sheffield gained their trams. Instead they listened to the lobbying from First and chucked huge sums of money up the wall on the guided busways on York Road and Scott Hall Road that are fundamentally useless. It's going to be very hard to now move away from buses having spent all that money on that infrastructure. And the big problem with buses is that they are polluting and they get stuck in all the same traffic.

Some really good points there. I guess what I was thinking was that taking the amount of money that Leeds City Council / WYPTE could attract to fund a tram system and applying it instead to fixing some of the problems you've highlighted might ultimately serve Leeds better than returning to the idea of trams. For instance, it might be better for Beeston and Hunslet to share a station on the existing railway line with fast, frequent electrified services to Leeds in one direction and maybe Wakefield or Pontefract in the other direction, rather than for them to be served by tram (even if the station location is less optimal than the tram stop locations would be). Assuming the first option could be provided for around the same cost as the second option.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Some really good points there. I guess what I was thinking was that taking the amount of money that Leeds City Council / WYPTE could attract to fund a tram system and applying it instead to fixing some of the problems you've highlighted might ultimately serve Leeds better than returning to the idea of trams. For instance, it might be better for Beeston and Hunslet to share a station on the existing railway line with fast, frequent electrified services to Leeds in one direction and maybe Wakefield or Pontefract in the other direction, rather than for them to be served by tram (even if the station location is less optimal than the tram stop locations would be). Assuming the first option could be provided for around the same cost as the second option.

The problem then becomes one of squeezing extra stops into tightly-diagrammed services; or squeezing extra services onto a congested railway; and squeezing extra passengers onto already crowded existing services.

If there's a magic bullet for Leeds' transport woes, it won't be a cheap one!