Leeds: Life in the Bus Lane
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rima Ahmed takes the bus into Leeds and tries to find out why it is “the biggest city in Western Europe without a mass transit system”. Rima meets passengers, campaigners and history buffs as well as local politicians to delve into why the city has had so many failed attempts to improve its public transport system since its tram was abolished in 1959.
Leeds was a transport pioneer - it introduced the first electric trams and trolleybuses in the country. In the 1970s and 80s, local councillors proudly declared Leeds “the motorway city” hailing the building of a massive urban motorway right through the city centre. In the 1990s, Sheffield was already building its supertram network and Leeds was also asking government to fund its own version. Despite funding being approved in 2001, £70 million had been wasted by the time Leeds’s supertram project was pulled by Transport Secretary Alastair Darling in 2005. A “trolleybus” scheme mooted in 2012 was also scrapped.
Now, the citizens of Leeds have been told that, if they are lucky, they may get a new mass transit system by 2040. Work may begin sometime by the end of the decade. In the meantime, the commuters of Leeds continue to live life in the bus lane.
Presenter: Rima Ahmed Producer: Johnathan I'Anson Sound mix: Craig Boardman Production Co-ordinator: Janet Staples Editor: Nicola Addyman
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | You're listening to Seriously from BBC Radio 4 and I'm your host Vanessa |
| 0:44.9 | Kasule. This podcast brings you an incredible selection of documentaries |
| 0:48.9 | about everything you could imagine and some things you couldn't. |
| 0:53.0 | Hit subscribe on the BBC Sounds app and enjoy more documentaries |
| 0:56.7 | that'll break your heart and blow your mind. Service 163 to Cuz offered Departs 1438. |
| 1:07.0 | The Leeds Bus Station, the full spectrum of human emotion. |
| 1:12.0 | From the all too familiar despair of yet another cancelled |
| 1:15.4 | service to the absolute elation of a bus actually arriving on time. This is |
| 1:21.3 | of course not exclusive to here, but Leeds is a big city. There are 800,000 of us, and really the only public transport we have is the bus and now else. |
| 1:32.0 | Welcome to the largest city in Western New York. the bus and now else. |
| 1:37.0 | Welcome to the largest city in Western Europe without a mass transit system. Although that is something we've been promises about to change. |
| 1:42.0 | And we will take forward our plans to revolutionize the infrastructure of Britain, including |
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