Why roads will not be closed in Leeds tomorrow for national Clean Air Day 2018

Clean Air Day typically involves people opting to either walk or cycle rather than use their car, but there are a variety of ways in which people get involved and make a contribution to the reduction of air pollution.

Leeds won’t be closing roads for Clean Air Day, unlike cities such as Edinburgh who are closing two major roads city centre roads around the festivity areas in order to celebrate Clean Air Day.

However, the city of Leeds will be partaking in raising awareness of the dangers of air pollution with two different events, one in City Square and one in Briggate.

According to Leeds City Council, these two events will feature art works, stalls and members of the Clean Air team who will be speaking about the different ways in which you can reduce air pollution.

This is all part of the council’s ongoing behaviour change campaign, with new initiatives recently announced.

As part of its Clean Air Zone plans to meet legal air quality targets, Leeds City Council is now proposing that drivers of and companies using vehicles such as coaches, buses and heavy goods vehicles would pay £50 per day to operate in a roughly 90 square kilometre radius within the city’s outer ring road.

It was previously suggested the rate could be £100.

Although the southern boundary of the charging area was initially proposed to be around the M62 and M621, following a public consultation this has been amended with the suggestion that the boundary should now be around the A61 and A63, not far from Leeds city centre.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority is also reminding people across the Leeds City region who are planning to take part in national Clean Air day how they can plan their travel.

Details of bus and rail travel across West Yorkshire and the city region can all be found on the Combined Authority’s Metro travel information website at: wymetro.com.

Details of Leeds’ 800-space Elland Road and 1,000-space Temple Green park and ride sites can also be found on this website.

These two park and ride sites are both served by new Hybrid Electric ultra-low emission buses, resulting in over 6,000 fewer car journeys on Leeds city centre streets each week, with fares starting from just £2.70 per day.

The Metro site’s online journey planner has an option for people wanting to select the best route to cycle, but there is also a dedicated journey planner for cyclists in the ‘Get Active’ section of the Combined Authority’s Cycle CityConnect website at: cyclecityconnect.co.uk/.

When cyclists use it to plan their journey they have the option to choose Unhurried, Cruising or Quick options, all of which will provide them with a route matched to the speed at which they want to pedal.