Ideals for big city transport in 30-year vision

January 17, 2018

A new vision by the Transport For The North partnership setting out a strategy for travel across the north for the next 30 years has recently been published with the aim of driving long-term economic growth.

One of the key strategies is a new railway connecting only Leeds, Bradford and Manchester. This at present is drawn as a line on a blank map with no consideration of route.

The long-term strategy does not go as far as considering the costs of building a route which would acheive the required direct line speeds within the geography of Pennine hills and meandering valleys. Nor does it consider the costs of creating a new line in Bradford city centre, which currently only has terminus stations.

In common with the Government's HS2 plans for Yorkshire, the strategy looks principally at the connection ideals of only the largest of our towns and cities and appears to ignore how other major population centres will connect. Halifax does not appear on the map of a new line through Bradford. Wakefield does not have the connectivity that HS2 passing through its area might have brought.

You can check-out all the plans for yourself at  Transport For The North.

OUR VIEW: Bradford needs a much better trans-Pennine train service and so does Halifax, but the practicalities of Pennine geography ought to be considered at the outset. The likely expense of conquering the geography of the Pennines and Bradford city centre should be obvious. We feel Bradford could be much better and more cheaply served with a new line in the Bradford, Dewsbury, Wakefield corridor which could connect the city to both the existing fast and to be upgraded trans-Pennine route through Huddersfield whilst also allowing it to connect to HS2 south of Wakefield.

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