'Park and Ride is for the Other Fellow'
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FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
IN the opinion of the individual motorist in Leeds, park and ride is an excellent idea, but "it's for the other fellow". So strong is this feeling that Leeds Corpora. tion traffic sub-committee has dropped the experimental park-and-ride scheme, described in this journal on April 9, as from last Friday. The scheme started on April 5, at the same time as traffic restrictions, a one-way system, and parking meters were introduced into the central business district. The car park, for 200 cars, was approximately 21 miles from the centre of Leeds and motorists could, and still can, park there free of charge. A one-man bus service operated from and to the park at peak hours on a 10-minute schedule, though, in the event, journeys were only operated during the morning peak when intending passengers were present.
Patrons dwindled from a score to a handful in the three weeks of operation and the catchment area seems to have been some six to 15 miles to the north and north-west of the city. Three buses operated the service and in three weeks (excluding Easter) ran 101 journeys and carried a total of 152 passengers. "Receipts of approximately £6 cannot possibly justify continued operation ", deputy traffic chief Mr. F. T. McGraw told The Commercial Motor, "particularly when one considers that the estimated annual operating cost of the buses is in the region of £8,000 ". A further difficulty is the acute shortage of crews.
It would be wrong to condemn the park-and-ride concept out of hand on the basis of this one experiment; similar schemes, in some instances in the USA, have met with some success.
" Inquests' on the scheme's present failure will probably reach two verdicts— those of scale and distance. Motorists will have to be convinced they are not being persuaded merely to transfer from a slow-moving car to a slow-moving bus, for even if 200 cars had been attracted, congestion would have been only fractionally relieved; perhaps, therefore, a scheme on a bigger scale would find more favour, though the situation in Leeds hardly justifies such an experiment.
On the question of distance, there is still a certain amount of parking space available, even to the all-day parkers, from the fringe of the central business district outward for about a mile, though this area has been better filled since the parking restrictions were imposed. Motorists are content, apparently, to use this area and then walk, or use the normal bus services, into the centre.