Transport overhaul could get next generation moving

But the growing congestion that continues to blight the historic city’s narrow roadways will need to be addressed.

The city council has placed its faith in park-and-ride schemes, with several up and running and more planned after winning Government funding last year.

The strategy is sure to continue, and the York of 2035 is likely to be ringed by park-and-ride sites which service the medieval city centre. But will it be enough to solve the problem entirely for the next generation?

Intriguingly, there are suggestions in some quarters that an old idea for a tram-train system linking the centre of York with Leeds and Harrogate could be revived.

Tram-trains – dual purpose electric carriages which run on ordinary railway lines between towns and cities, but then branch off on to city centre streets – are increasingly prevalent on the continent, and the UK’s first trials get under way in South Yorkshire in 2015.

If the Sheffield-Rotherham experiment proves successful, the Department for Transport has indicated it could open the floodgates for such systems to spring up around the UK. With key decisions over new transport schemes soon to lie in the hands of regional politicians rather than Whitehall bureaucrats, a modern next-generation transport system for York is certainly a possibility by 2035.

Other key development projects should also be completed over the coming years, including the controversial extension of Monk’s Cross.