Campaign to keep Yorkshire moving must drive forward as times change

These days Shipley Glen is a precious conservation area and gateway to Ilkley Moor, but had he and fellow campaigners not opposed plans to build a motorway there back in the late 1960s, this natural beauty spot would have disappeared for good.

"I had only just moved to Bradford and I thought Shipley Glen was a wonderful place and it just didn't seem right to have a motorway going through it," he says. "This was shortly after the Beeching cuts were being felt and that led to the rail unions and Friends of the Earth forming Transport 2000 (now called the Campaign for Better Transport] and I went to the inaugural meeting because like many people who enjoy the countryside I was worried about the impact the motorways would have."

Transport may not be the coolest or sexiest issue in the world, but it affects us all, whether we drive to work, hop on the bus to go shopping, or take a train for a city break. Ray co-founded the West Yorkshire Campaign for Better Transport 35 years ago to help improve rail and bus services, particularly in Leeds and Bradford.

"When the Settle to Carlisle line was faced with closure we encouraged the Ramblers Association to hire trains for walkers and that helped launch the campaign to save the railway," he says. "We also campaigned for new stations and the electrification of lines in West Yorkshire and they listened to us because we now have electric trains through Ilkley and Skipton. The train service has been improved dramatically in the last 30 years and it was our representations to the local Passenger Transport Executive that persuaded them to support trains."

Regular rail users frequently bemoan the quality of the network, but Ray says it's far better than it was 40 years ago.

"Most of the railways were pretty dilapidated when I started campaigning, we had very old diesel trains but the worst thing was the frequency. The Leeds to Skipton service was hourly, but there was a gap at lunch time when the crews went off to have their lunch, and it didn't serve Shipley because it wasn't on the main line. Now there's a half hourly service from Leeds to Skipton and between Bradford and Skipton."

This improvement, he says, coincided with privatisation. "People still disagree about this, but I think it was a good move. When they were nationalised both the main political parties were only ever interested in making cuts, because they thought railways were an anachronism. I think the government at the time privatised the railways because they thought they were heading for the museums and didn't want to take responsibility for closing them."

However, many people believe an improved network has come at too high a price for rail users at a time which has seen air fares tumble. In recent years there have been times when it's been cheaper to buy a one-way ticket from Leeds-Bradford Airport to Paris or Prague, than it's been to travel by train from Bradford to Whitby. "It's true that train fares have gone up faster than inflation but they haven't gone up as fast as people's wages. I think they're reasonable for leisure users and shoppers but they are expensive for commuters."

And these same commuters are up in arms after seeing the cost of their season tickets rise by 5.8 per cent earlier this month, although Ray believes this is an inescapable reality. "If everyone wants to go into town in the same one-hour period every morning, either the fares have to be very high, or the subsidies have to be very high because the trains won't carry as many people throughout the rest of the day," he says. "Because transport has been so cheap in the past people have perhaps been living in places inappropriate to where they work. You can say by making train fares cheaper you encourage people out of their cars, but then they might live much further away and this certainly has been happening in Airedale. So people who would have lived in Leeds are living further up the valley instead, which means more fields get built on."

As well as campaigning to improve the train network in Yorkshire, Ray, a retired lab technician, has been involved with the Campaign for Better Transport's efforts to improve bus services. "I remember years ago getting on Hebble buses in Halifax and you were told the bus wasn't going anywhere because it had broken down. People used to complain that this happened all the time, whereas now the buses are more reliable."

But there is a downside. "We've lost the evening and Sunday services in many small towns and we've lost a lot of rural services which were stopped because the bus companies said that not enough people were using them. But if you live in a place like Pateley Bridge and you have the choice between an hourly bus service to Harrogate or a 20 minute drive by car, those who can afford to will drive."

Although it's widely assumed that cars will be the most popular from of transport in the future, with oil prices spiralling to unprecedented levels Ray isn't so sure. "Many people assume that cars will remain the most important form of transport over the next few decades and they will always be vital, but increasingly we will have to look at more economic, and less polluting, ways of travelling."

In cities like Leeds there has been a growing calls for cheaper parking, but critics say this would cause even greater congestion. "If politicians made it easier for people to park and those on the buses and trains decided to drive to work, then you'd have an extra 20,000 people on the roads which make them horrendous." Ray says it makes better sense to encourage more drivers to use buses instead. "In Leeds there's an opportunity to reduce the number of cars. There are lot of high-frequency bus services in the city and if you get an annual season ticket it's under 2 a day to travel into work, which is much less than the cheapest parking."

Some campaigners would like to see trams make a comeback but Ray doesn't think it's viable and points to the Leeds Supertram project which was cancelled in 2005 due to spiralling costs. "It's a shame that more cities didn't keep their trams because if they had we would all be better off. But it's very expensive to try and re-introduce them and I think it's better to have a good bus policy and to make sure buses have priority so they can provide a reliable service.

"Hull has a very good bus network and Harrogate, too, has a high quality service. In York, the buses are good although they still have a problem with congestion which means the fares are high because they need more buses to run a decent service."

But given all the improvements made in the past decade-and-a-half, why are so many people still unhappy with our public transport system? "Trains are so popular they have become overcrowded at times, while buses are often stuck in traffic jams and that makes them unreliable. But in cities where they have good bus priority schemes buses are very popular and half the population use them," he says.

"A public transport network that attracts people on to it, will not only reduce congestion it will reduce individual family costs, which means society is better off." And that, surely, is what campaigning is all about.

Fares and unfairness

The Campaign for Better Transport's latest mission is a petition against increased rail fares.

In January, season tickets prices rose by an average of 5.8 per cent, with some soaring by 13 per cent.

Rail bosses said the increase would be used to pay for vital investment, but campaigners, who have won the backing of former Monty Python and seasoned traveller Michael Palin, believe commuters won't see the benefits. In Yorkshire commuters travelling between Leeds and Wakefield or Bradford have been the hardest hit. A season ticket between the cities now costs 784, a rise of 7.14 per cent.

To find out more about campaigns in your area log on to www.bettertransport.org.uk