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news
Leeds trolleybus image (source New Generation Transport)"A missed opportunity" - Leeds Cycling Campaign aims to throw spoke into city's trolleybus plans
Leeds Cycling Campaign says that a planned trolleybus system in the West Yorkshire misses “a huge opportunity” to underpin local authorities’ commitments to bring about a “step-change” in provision for cyclists, and will also hamper growth of cycling and walking there.
In a statement issued yesterday to a public inquiry into the £250 million New Generation Transport (NGT) scheme, promoted by Leeds City Council and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, the cycling campaign group said the initiative would do “little to improve the situation for cycling and walking, particularly as the scheme would travel along the most-cycled route in Leeds.”
The planned route would link Holt Park in the north of the city that this year hosted the Grand Depart of the Tour de France with Stourton in the south, and would also go through congested areas including Hyde Park and Headingley, reports the Yorkshire Evening Post.
According to Leeds Cycling Campaign’s submission to the public inquiry, which is due to finish at the end of next month and which will help determine whether the scheme gets the go-ahead from the government, “the assumptions underpinning NGT are unduly favourable to unsustainable and inefficient modes of transport while ignoring the potential of walking and cycling.”
The campaign group adds that “NGT while overall slightly beneficial for cycling misses a huge opportunity to support the step-change in cycling that has been promised by Leeds and West Yorkshire authorities.”
The submission to the inquiry did note, however, “The positive discussions we have had with designers and their attempts to implement better provision for cycling within the limits imposed on them.”
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, supporters of the scheme believe it will benefit the local economy, while critics say it is a waste of money that could be better spend elsewhere.
Also objecting to the scheme is the city’s biggest bus operator, First Group, which maintains that introducing double-decker buses similar to the new-generation Routemasters deployed in London by Boris Johnson would be a better investment.
Once a common site in many cities across Britain, trolleybuses, which draw their power from overhead wires and unlike trams do not travel on rails first appeared in the UK in 1911 in Leeds and Bradford – the latter being the last place to decommission them, in 1972.
Currently, there are around 300 systems in operation in more than 40 countries worldwide, including one in San Remo in Italy, where the overhead power lines can be seen in old photographs of the former finish line of Milan-San Remo on Via Roma.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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It does seem quite dated to be considering full overhead electrification for trolleybuses. There are a lot of cities around the world conducting trials of electric bus networks using fast charging systems.
Most of those use a physical connection, which rapidly top up for a minute or so at the mandatory stops. TfL have also just announced that they are going to trial inductive charging. In London the new buses are diesel/electric hybrids, which means that any electric boost allows them to run more of their journey in pure electric mode, whilst if they don't get enough of a charge they still have the diesel to fall back on.
Press release here if anyone curious - http://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2014/august/new-hybrid-b...
A system which wastes energy for no good reason.
Electric works, why would we want stinking diesel? Hybrid = a half-arsed system where you have to maintain both a diesel engine and an electric system.
Can TFL do anything right?
Trolleybuses are an unhappy medium - they're not as attractive to car users as fixed rail, and they don't attract development investment either. Fixed rail (whether tram or train) can re-shape and regenerate the areas it serves, buses (trolley or otherwise) don't.
Leeds does have hybrid electric buses running already,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-22168757
Can't we just have more of these?
Bus lanes in each direction as far as the Ring Road plus Cycle lanes and the existing footpaths. And coffee halt kiosks with benches. And no trucks, vans, cars, not even cabs. Just scheduled buses. And do something similar all the way round the city so normal people can feel safe and enjoy walking, scooting, skateboarding or cycling into the centre. And this would get the students off the buses ..... And, yes, deliveries - these could be from side roads and / or out of hours .... And by cutting off through traffic on some minor roads - calmed routes from surrounding towns and villages could be created .... and this could all be done within weeks, and adjusted in the light of experience .... In China, if they decide to have an Airport, it's opened in 18 months .... here we just sit round talking, commissioning reports and feasibility studies and never getting to the point .... whilst in Sweden and in Germany, in Holland and in Colombia people are waking up to the fact that there comes a point when cars become a major problem rather than a solution ....
Batteries are really suitable for busses, the cost and weight of an all day bus battery would make for a very low capacity, uneconomical bus. Fuel cells are a costly boondoggle, hydrogen is costly to make and difficult to store. Trolley busses or trams represent the best value for electric mass transit.
But electric vehicles are an area developing at a tremendous pace... even so, wikipedia tells me that they ran electric buses in Beijing six years ago for 24 hours, they just swapped out the batteries. It does seem short sighted to be putting a network of wires up, even if the benefits of enhanced battery tech, for example, will probably be picked up at a delayed pace by the few transportation manufacturers who might bid for such a project.
Electrical buses are perfectly economical and in use
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_electric_bus
Fuel cells are a new technology with advancements happening all of the time, you appear to be writing off a technology before it's even started. Toyota are to sell the first limited production fuel cell car next year.
Hydrogen can actually be produced at a fraction of the cost of diesel using renewable energy, with the added bonus that it can use excess renewable energy allowing for more renewables to be used.
Why invest in outdated tech?
cable systems need a lot of maintenance and isn't cheap to install, and if damaged in one area the whole system is in chaos.
I would have thought that to future-proof the project they would be investing in induction, battery or fuel cells.
The proposed buses do have cells for detours around traffic.
It wasn't trolleybuses that were common, rather, it was trams.
LCC are wrong in this imho.
The trolley bus will take years and cause a massive amount of disruption. Lets not forget that this will be handed over to First buses to run and take the profits when its Leeds tax payers stumping up £22m for it.
The system is outdated, the money could be spend on better buses and better bus lanes rather than one route which is mostly ALL bus lanes as is.