YP Letters: Leeds faces another decade in the slow lane

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.
What should be done to cut congestion in Leeds?What should be done to cut congestion in Leeds?
What should be done to cut congestion in Leeds?

MP Fabian Hamilton makes yet another powerful case for drastic action to improve Leeds’s woefully inadequate public transport (The Yorkshire Post, August 27). He reminds us, once again, that Leeds is the biggest city in Europe without a tram or tube system. At this moment, the City Council’s answer is to spend yet more millions on yet more diesel buses.

We were recently informed that work will soon start on the A61 (Harrogate Road), in the hope of aiding what has been described as a “transformation”. This road was transformed 80 years ago, with the present reservation set to take segregated tram tracks from Moortown Corner to Alwoodley Gates.

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Presumably more “experts” have been involved in the latest proposals. Have they devised something which has escaped the whole of mainland Europe – a mass rapid transit system for less than half the price of the conventional rail-based ones? If not, then Leeds and the wider region are condemned to yet another decade of atmospheric and logistical pollution.

Of course cost must be considered, but isn’t the proposed £137m little more than an insult? If Westminster and Whitehall continue to prevaricate and obfuscate, keep reminding them of Crossrail and the rest until the next election.