With national Clean Air Day approaching on Thursday (21 June), West Yorkshire Combined Authority is reminding people across the Leeds City region planning to take part, how they can plan their travel.
Detail of bus and rail travel across West Yorkshire and the city region can all be found in one place on the Combined Authority’s Metro travel information website at www.wymetro.com(external link) including information about industrial action taking place on local trains. The site is designed to suit mobile, smartphone and tablet users to make it easy for people to use while they are on the move.
As well as a postcode-to-postcode journey planner, the site provides bus timetables and rail timetable links. There is also real-time bus information for all of West Yorkshire’s 14,000 bus stops and live train departures information for its 69 rail stations are all available via the Metro site.
Details of Leeds’ 800-space Elland Road and 1,000-space Temple Green park and ride sites, which are both served by new Hybrid Electric ultra-low emission buses, can also be found on the site. The two sites are resulting in over 6,000 fewer car journeys on Leeds city centre streets each week and fares start from just £2.70 per day.
There are also links to the MCard website at www.m-card.co.uk(external link) where people can find out about the North’s leading travel smartcard, including the no-photo Pink card, which the whole household can use to make savings.
The Metro site’s online journey planner has an option for people wanting to select the best route to cycle, but there is also a dedicated journey planner for cyclists in the ‘Get Active’ section of the Combined Authority’s Cycle CityConnect website at www.cyclecityconnect.co.uk/(external link). When they use it to plan their journey, cyclists have the option to choose Unhurried, Cruising or Quick options that will provide them with a route matched to the speed at which they want to pedal.
Cllr Keith Wakefield, Chair of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Transport Committee said:
“As Clean Air Day approaches, I am pleased that our joint Bus18 initiative with operators has already seen £23.5 million joint investment in new buses, and a package of improvements for young bus passengers.
“For people wanting to do their bit for the environment and are able to take part in Thursday’s Clean Air Day and perhaps change their long-term travel habits, the Metro website makes planning alternative travel simple.
“By visiting www.wymetro.com(external link), they can plan their journey ahead and use it for the updates they might want during the day such as live departure information about their journey home.”
As well as the Metro website, which delivers around 2.5 million pages of information each month, the Combined Authority provides regular travel update through its @MetroTravelNews(external link) Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/metrotravelnews which has over 22,000(external link) followers as well as its West Yorkshire Metro Facebook(external link) page at www.facebook.com/westyorkshiremetro(external link) which has almost 15,000 ‘likes’.
Northern train services are affected by industrial action on Tuesday 19, Thursday 21 and Saturday 23 June.