Leeds as a Commuter City

Leeds has claimed one of the top spots in a new study looking at the best commuter cities in the UK - but what are your travel experiences?

Transcript

00:00 I lived in Leeds last year, I live in Manchester now so I usually get a train in but I've always

00:06 got the buses just back and forth and even a lot of people live up in Burley and like

00:10 across that direction so the train's very easy to get so I'm not surprised that it's

00:15 one of the best commuting towns because it's very easy to get around.

00:18 I'm fairly lucky so I get to park under my work building which I know I am fortunate

00:23 because like a yearly pass for some of the car parks are quite expensive but it's worth

00:28 it for me. I used to use the park and ride and I was an evangelist for the park and ride

00:32 and I don't want to be negative but it used to be really on time, every ten minutes you

00:38 could absolutely count on it and it just seemed to have gone downhill a bit and there's a

00:44 few of us that used to use the park and ride and now have taken to either buying yearly

00:48 passes or whatever because of the convenience because you could be waiting thirty minutes

00:52 on an evening for a bus.

00:53 I mainly commute by bus, I normally get a weekly ticket so I come in and out relatively

01:00 easily. I find when I finish work I'm normally bombarded by students and particularly school,

01:09 people that just finished say high school and I don't mind but sometimes the buses can

01:16 be a bit late but on the whole I would say it's pretty good.

01:21 I come in from the Huddersfield direction so I get the train from Huddersfield in. It's

01:26 ok it has improved, it was consistently being delayed or consistently late, that has improved,

01:33 there has been rail improvements recently that have helped with that however I still

01:39 find a couple of times a week still five, ten minutes late. The city itself with them

01:45 pedestrianising more of it has made it easier to traverse on foot so once I'm off the train

01:50 yeah a lot quicker.

01:52 In terms of price it would be like two quid, three quid one way even the train because

01:56 the train from Leeds station to Burley is only two fifty or something so it's not too

02:01 bad it's not too bad.

02:03 If you can park in the city centre I think it's great and I come in early enough that

02:07 I miss some of the traffic. Some of the road works can be a bit of a pain but it's a city,

02:12 it's a working city, there's road works, what you're going to do that's fine.

02:15 From the M1 when you get off I personally find it dead easy to get right into the centre.

02:22 There's a bus lane or a bus gate that has a specific time that if you're in early enough

02:28 you can go down the bus gate and it's not used very often and you just get right into

02:32 the city centre it takes no time at all. So if you know your routes and you know where

02:36 you're going you've got to be really careful because it's really easy to go into the wrong

02:39 bus gate.

02:40 At the minute the trains have gone up to ten pounds a day if I want to get an open ticket

02:44 and it's getting to the point where it's actually cheaper for me in petrol and car parking to

02:48 do that instead which while easier and cheaper isn't particularly environmentally friendly.

02:54 Speed wise it just depends how busy the roads are and how many passengers want to get on

03:01 at the bus stop and that's just 50/50 really.