Road, Rail & Access Issues

[cmj]

It's not an airport link road or even a Yeadon by-pass, it's a "allow developers to build over the greenbelt" road. As such, it will probably make access to the airport harder - the extra traffic generated by the road will be more than the local network can actually handle.

 

[Aviador]

The chap from LCC at the drop in session said there would be no junctions on the new road as it's sole purpose was to be an airport link road. He didn't say that it categorically won't happen in the future though.

 

[White Heather]

Well there are junctions at both ends and at the airport. I would suspect they may go underneath the road on the Horsforth/Rawdon boundary outside Horsforth Golf Club, (Layton Lane?) otherwise there would have to be a junction there, and they will have to do something where the road crosses Bayton Lane and meets Scotland Lane if they are to avoid junctions with relatively minor roads.

I cannot see how the new road will increase traffic to a point where the roads cannot cope and sooner or later, if planners allow constant developments, road developments have to happen, and most of them are through green belt. If they built the much vaunted rail link, that too, will go through green belt, all the way from Horsforth to Guiseley, and I guarantee that if/when that happens, many of the people currently crying out for the rail link rather than building a road across green belt, will then be objecting to the rail link on exactly the same grounds. Easy to see why very little ever seems to happen in these parts on infrastructure. In Manchester, they just drive it through. In Leeds, in the past, we haven't done anything much as it was easier not to bother. Now, we are paying the penalty and the huge gulf between LBA and MAN is partly down to the lack of ambition in the past when MPs and Councillors took the view that it was easier for them to keep their seats if they objected to all such developments and point Yorkshire folk in the direction of Manchester if they wanted to fly. I suspect that might be about to change and sad as I will be to see the green belt destroyed, it needs to happen for this road.

We need the road link first, and hopefully a rail link later. In the shorter term, they should supplement the road link with an LBA parkway station on the Harrogate line with access from the new road, and, if there was any joined up thinking at all, the parkway station should be built as part of the new road scheme. Bundling the two schemes together would save a considerable amount overall. This is Yorkshire though.............

 

[Aviador]

Used the new Apperley Bridge railways station today. Overall I was impressed with the facilities other than it would be nice to see a manned ticket office rather than just a ticket machine. Having a manned office would also make it feel safer for some people.

There is a large bus turning circle suitable for the largest of buses and with sufficient space for buses to pass each other if necessary. The new facility definitely has potential for a possible bus connection to LBA even if it is just for the intermediate term while an on-site facility is made in the future.

View media item 3753Apperley Bridge station bus turing circle, by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airport.com

View media item 3754Apperley Bridge station bus turing circle, by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airport.com

View media item 3749Approach road to Apperley Bridge station by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airports.com

View media item 3765Apperley Bridge station bus turing circle and seating area, by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airport.com

View media item 3758Platform 1 at Apperley Bridge station by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airports.com

View media item 3760Platform 2 at Apperley Bridge station by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airports.com

 

[whoshotjimmi]

It is great that Apperley Bridge is now open and has provision for connecting bus services. However, I have concerns about the length of the platform. If Arriva plan to introduce 6 carriage trains on the route, it will require further expansion.

Anyway, I have been having a little mooch around on the internet and have come across this:

http://www.wymetro.com/uploadedFiles/WY ... dacted.pdf

It is a report on the feasibility of stations on the local network and, though it is quite a long read, I have found it very interesting. Page 22 highlights some of the things we have been talking about on this thread with regards to access to LBA and possibly details some of the challenges connecting LBA to the rail network faces. I believe the criteria used to select appropriate sites - and some of the assumptions made in progressing potential sites - is highly flawed. For example, Horsforth Woodside provided one of the best business cases for new station openings but was not continued from the initial stage because it was close to the existing Horsforth station and shared a catchment area with Kirkstall Forge and (get this) the proposed park and ride at Boddington on the trolleybus network, which is plainly ludicrous. It then goes on to highlight Cookridge, which is broadly where a LBA station would be located. Very little of the criteria is met and the proposal was discontinued almost immediately.

I know this probably won't be everyone's cup of tea but I find some of the logic of transport planners fascinating.

I should also state that the report was concluded at the end of 2014. There has been a major change in focus for rail service on the line since then with the Arriva announcement and it shows up the bafflingly short sighted approach that the region continues to take with public transport.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

whoshotjimmi: Thanks for putting up this report worthwhile reading. Amazed that they had a field for households without cars, I would not have thought this would be high enough to measure, there must still be enough households without a car to make a measure worthwhile.
Note that Aviador wonders about a manned ticket office at Apperley Bridge, notice this report highlights for new station that the budget cost in 2013 for just the maintenance of CCTV and ticket machines stands at £45,000 per annum, manning stations even for just he peak hours would I am sure double the running costs. No business today wants to take cash and you certainly would not want to expose your staff with money to an isolated location such as this.

 

[Aviador]

notice this report highlights for new station that the budget cost in 2013 for just the maintenance of CCTV and ticket machines stands at £45,000 per annum

No business today wants to take cash and you certainly would not want to expose your staff with money to an isolated location such as this.

That seems somewhat contradictory. You think it costs too much to look after the CCTV and ticket machines yet you think it would be unsafe for staff to work in an isolated location.

Guiseley and Horsforth stations weren't manned for long enough. When they were refurbished, manned ticket offices were reintroduced. Clearly a hugely popular move as the number of rail users from those stations has increased immensely.

Let's be honest £45,000 per annum might seem like a large amount of money but it's only a tiny sum of money for a large organisation, particularly when it can improve the safety for station users.

By the way, my wife is a season pass holder paying in the region of £1000 a year for the privilege.

I'm not going to question your ability to run your business but running a business on shoestring isn't always the right thing to do.

 

[whoshotjimmi]

It's the whole 'spend money to make money' argument, isn't it?

If more money is spent on things like ticket machines, ticket barriers, staff etc, then more money will be made in revenue or in the prevention of lost revenue. The decision on whether to spend the money will be like any other business, does the benefit justify the spend?

It is even more critical to get that decision correct when using large amounts of public money. The public tend not to like having their money being spent on a whim. However, in certain circumstances, the initial large outlay of public money will reduce the subsidy the public have to pay for the service, if not rid of it altogether. This is the part that the public often do not understand. They are already paying for many services without using them. If people were given greater access to these services, they would simply pay fares instead of subsidies. Everyone's a winner in that situation.

Whatever the decision is, it is important that it is not made on flawed principles and, I'm afraid to say, this report is based on many false assumptions and highlights the lack of business intuition in the area of transport planning. They believe, for example, that it is far more feasible to spend £500m on a trolleybus system and then build a park and ride at the end of it (which would cost passengers approx. £6 per day and take approx. 40 minutes each way) than spend £7m on a park and ride a couple of miles away at Woodside (which would cost passengers approx. £4 per day and take 15 mins each way).

This report was compiled by a similar group of people who were responsible for the publication of the Railway Station Entry/Exits 2015 that was released a few days into the new year. The table showed that almost all stations in the region had had a decent increase in passenger numbers and some had a very large increase. One such station was New Pudsey, where passenger entry/exit had increased by approx. 100,000 in a single year. In the table notes beside the station, the comments read "no known reason for increase". Of course, the fact that the car park was almost doubled in size and the station building was revamped the year before clearly had nothing to do with it....

These two cases are examples of why I believe the local transport plan to be fundamentally flawed and why the decision making needs to be completely overhauled. Once this is done (along with a little private funding), LBA may have a better opportunity of getting connected to the network.

Though it may not be the correct thing to run a business on a shoestring at all times, as you say Aviador, it is important to be sensible, to have the right people making the decisions and spend the money on the right projects.

 

[White Heather]

It's the whole 'spend money to make money' argument, isn't it?

The decision on whether to spend the money will be like any other business, does the benefit justify the spend?

Though it may not be the correct thing to run a business on a shoestring at all times, as you say Aviador, it is important to be sensible, to have the right people making the decisions and spend the money on the right projects.

Exactly - two points that everyone should bear in mind when crying out for Bridgepoint to expend some huge sums of money on developing LBA, which their expertise and market research tells them will not result in sufficient increase in capacity to recover the outlay. What applies to the railway companies applies equally to the airports.

 

[Aviador]

You're trying to compare apples with oranges. Apperley Bridge railway station doesn't have a more domineering railway station trying to poach passengers from it. LBA on the other hand has neighbouring Manchester airport investing heavily with £££bn of pounds of investment drawing even more passengers away from the LBA catchment area.

[offtopic]Earlier this week the owners of Friends Reunited said they are to close their site down because of other larger more domineering sites such as Facebook have taken over the market.[/offtopic]

 

[jason1-11]

There’s a saying ” If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got.” So if Bridgepoint and some of the other stakeholders don’t invest to right some of many wrongs with the airport i.e. Access, Terminal, Runway, then the region will never have an airport commensurate with its size and scale and aviation services will continue to be lost to other regions.

 

[lbaspotter]

As the old saying goes! "Why change a habit of a life time"
Sums up LBA perfectly over the years.

 

[White Heather]

You're trying to compare apples with oranges. Apperley Bridge railway station doesn't have a more domineering railway station trying to poach passengers from it. LBA on the other hand has neighbouring Manchester airport investing heavily with £££bn of pounds of investment drawing even more passengers away from the LBA catchment area.

[offtopic]Earlier this week the owners of Friends Reunited said they are to close their site down because of other larger more domineering sites such as Facebook have taken over the market.[/offtopic]

I don't agree at all with that.

Its a basic fundamental principle of running a business that you don't pour money in unless you know that, eventually, it will lead to sufficient growth or have sufficient impact, to recover what you have invested - at least - and preferably result in growth and profit. Ignore that principle and the future could be bleak. The presence of Manchester is always going to cast a shadow because LBA owners must know that even if they did throw mega-bucks at the airport, it would only taken another 9-11 or Volcano eruption, or major terrorism event, or major economy downturn, and the period in which they recover their expenditure could be extended dramatically. The fact is that when these things happen and the aviation industry is impacted, the tendency of airlines is to consolidate to the major airports, which (much as I hate to say it) means Manchester in the North of England. It shouldn't, but thats the way it is.

Don't get me wrong - I want LBA to be fully developed as much as everyone else. I am frustrated as hell that it is not at least on a par (in terms of runway and facilities) with Newcastle and East Midlands. But the fact is that Bridgepoint are an investment company, whether we like it or not. They are unlikely to invest in such as a runway extension because they (and presumably they are advised by the airport board) do not consider that the additional traffic generated would ever result in the expenditure being recovered. That too is to a large extent the result of Manchester being within 60 miles. The same would apply to developing a brand new fit for purpose terminal - something I have been banging on about for years - and not only on here. In my recent meeting with the airport MD I told him then what I thought they should have done rather than continually doing piecemeal add-ons and refurbishments of a terminal that is not up to the job.

The problem at LBA is that we need owners who are focussed purely on running an airport and developing it, and are prepared to put in the money which will be returned, but may take a long time. So they have to be in it for the long haul. Investment companies generally are not always in it for the long haul. I suspect we will see how long they are in it for might become slightly more apparent when we finally see the Airport Masterplan.

 

[Aviador]

....and all because I said Apperley Bridge station needed a ticket office. (Man in a box on minimum wage). Run....

Forums are a wonderful thing. We can all air our views in belief we are all right yet not one of us can claim that we are. We're all armchair critics in a fantasy aviation world similar to armchair football managers who throw their slippers at the TV when their team doesn't win. Sometimes the real football managers get in wrong too.

 

[airforced]

I do love it when the mythical Masterplan gets a mention! It really brightens my day.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

I would love to see a mock up of the terminal of the future. No hold bags, no checking of passports, automatic security, proper weighing and measureing facilities for cabin luggage at every gate, no checking of tickets, basically just turn up and walk on the plane.
In Spain on arrival I just stick my finger in the slot to clear customs, in Italy I use my eyes, soon no doubt the same way to get out of u.k. airports everywhere.
No airline wants hold luggage and I hate carting my luggage to and from the airport. Charges for collecting from your home and delivering to your hotel are reducing to match hold charges by airlines. With the security aspects of hold luggage, the cost and issues of getting cases to the carousel, removing hold cases would be a boom for the airports.
A terminal designed on todays operational procedures will be pointless for the future.

 

[Aviador]

That airport wont ever exist because in the world of complete automation, nobody will work and therefore nobody will be able to afford to fly except for the one man who owns this automated world. Sorry for my cynicism but it's probably true.

 

[lbaspotter]

Local BBC Radio Leeds seem to be doing a lot of reporting today about the proposed A65/A658 Airport Link Road options and also asking for Transport chiefs to speed up plans of a rail link as well. http://bbc.in/1KucbKl

I'm guessing the will be more details to follow up later with this afternoon's 13:30 & evenings 18:30 BBC Look North News bulletins..

 

[Aviador]

No doubt BBC Look North will feature plenty of people opposing the link road whatever route it should follow. The Forums4airports opinion poll is open to anybody and most people here favour Option A. Unlike the council, we have an Option D "none of the above" option yet only 9% of people taking part in our poll have said they wouldn't want any link road to be built.

 

[Aviador]

CONCERNS about link road proposals to Leeds Bradford Airport

CONCERNS about link road proposals to Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) were outlined to transport minister Andrew Jones during a meeting with a Wharfedale MP and councillors.

Horsforth and Aireborough MP Stuart Andrew raised issues about the three proposals – ranging in cost from £15 million to £75 million – when he met Mr Jones along with Rawdon parish councillors Dawn Collins, Neil Hunt and John Davies.

http://www.ilkleygazette.co.uk/news/142 ... d_Airport/