Reducing traffic congestion vital to overhaul of city’s bus network
TRANSPORT BOSSES in Leeds have made a renewed pledge to “keep the city moving” as the next stage of a major £180m overhaul of the bus network approaches.
And an inquiry panel set up to examine the improvements needed to bus services in Yorkshire’s largest city has been told that decision-makers must focus on reducing congestion and tackling “micro” issues before they can hope to deliver on their wider ambitions.
The Leeds City Council commissioned cross-party inquiry has already made nine key recommendations, with ideas including more work on opening up the city’s bus service market and making it more competitive. A detailed action plan has now been ordered by early 2018.
But at a wrap-up session of the scrutiny investigation, panel members urged West Yorkshire Combined Authority – which will oversee the transport overhaul – to put tackling congestion at the heart of the strategy.
Paul Truswell, chair of the panel, said: “Congestion is something we have focused on as a specific issue in its own right.
“It’s clearly one that relates to bus services as well, because the bus operators never hesitate to say that it’s one of the main reasons why their services are unreliable.
“We don’t necessarily buy that – but it’s something that obviously needs to be looked at.”
He urged further investigation of the “pinch-points and problems”. And he stressed that in many cases, “practical stuff rather than number-crunching” was vital to finding a solution.
“It’s very clear to anyone driving into this city – on whichever route – that there are some things that could be done that aren’t astronomically expensive, or groundbreaking, like stopping people queuing into junctions for example,” he said. “I can quote a number of examples where just the extension of yellow lines for 10 feet would reduce some of the pinch-points and allow traffic to pass on both side of the road rather than having to slow down to allow people to come towards you.
“It’s practical stuff rather than number-crunching.”
A major £180m investment in bus services in Leeds over the next decade was announced earlier this year. A large chunk of the funding will come from the £173.5m of Government cash that was originally earmarked for the scrapped NGT trolleybus scheme.
Research shows that 15 per cent of working residents in Leeds travel by bus, with 250,000 bus trips being made per day in the city.
A report presented to Leeds City Council’s Infrastructure panel yesterday noted that “as the major public transport carrier in the city, bus services alongside those of rail have a key role in keeping the city moving as part of the balanced transport strategy”.
The panel was told that “visible management issues” were a priority in a citywide scoping exercise.
Andrew Hall,from the council’s development department, said that ultimately, the network overhaul would be a “corridor-based programme to support bus services, bus operation and the aspiration that we will double patronage over 10 years”.
He stressed that a “strategic approach” to tackling congestion was important, adding that “the knock-on effects are such that if you don’t have that, you just create a queue somewhere else”.