SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Worst seem to be showing off the Borismaster. Didn't we see the last of these back in 1976? Anything to avoid having any form of competition it seems.

Here is a clearer pic of the Leeds Borismaster. Sorry if its already been posted.

BillyBritvic wrote: Here is a clearer pic of the Leeds Borismaster. Sorry if its already been posted. Rather overly photoshopped or other paintbrusher of choicehttp://goo.gl/maps/Q87Sabut perhaps more confirmation of the route being 1

BillyBritvic wrote: Here is a clearer pic of the Leeds Borismaster. Sorry if its already been posted. Interesting use of "NGT" logo on the side of the bus.............their sworn deadly enemy !

somme1916 wrote: BillyBritvic wrote: Here is a clearer pic of the Leeds Borismaster. Sorry if its already been posted. Interesting use of "NGT" logo on the side of the bus.............their sworn deadly enemy ! Its a bit cheeky but it made me smile. Although I do wonder what Cllr Lewsis makes of it...!

raveydaveyIts a bit cheeky but it made me smile. Although I do wonder what Cllr Lewsis makes of it...    Nor do I raveydavey - but not a lot I would guess, as he always appears to me to be on another sparkling wildly optimistic and unrealistic planet as far as public transport is concerned     

Its not just him though Blakey, its the whole lot of em.They come across as being either 30 years out of date, young and inexperienced or purely and simply politically motivated but with no other motivation to do the right thing for Leeds.Perhaps its a reflection of the electorate in Leeds itself, we get what we deserve.I see that, vice-chairman of the North West European Regional Development Fund Local Management Committee and chief executive of Manchester city council has secured international private funding for a huge development in East Manchester.We have no one like this on this side of the Pennines, the nearest we have is a Tory councillor Andrew Carter who at least pushed the arena through.Whilst we have the likes of Wakefield and Gruen,irrespective of political party, then we will never get the transport infrastructure we need.These blokes are just ordinary folk like you and me and dont have the sort of drive or vision that someone like Howerd Bernstein, who started on the council as a clerk, have.I hear more about Mr Bernstein than i do Tim Riordan, the Chief Executive in Leeds.Frankly im of the mind these days that perhaps we should have a Boris Johnson type mayor and take up the possible offer of the funding that will go with that given by Osbourne.Either that or we carry on as we are, moaning and groaning about a slow, inept and visionless council who are merely trying to score points against each other in the political ring    

cnosni wrote: Its not just him though Blakey, its the whole lot of em.They come across as being either 30 years out of date, young and inexperienced or purely and simply politically motivated but with no other motivation to do the right thing for Leeds.Perhaps its a reflection of the electorate in Leeds itself, we get what we deserve.I see that, vice-chairman of the North West European Regional Development Fund Local Management Committee and chief executive of Manchester city council has secured international private funding for a huge development in East Manchester.We have no one like this on this side of the Pennines, the nearest we have is a Tory councillor Andrew Carter who at least pushed the arena through.Whilst we have the likes of Wakefield and Gruen,irrespective of political party, then we will never get the transport infrastructure we need.These blokes are just ordinary folk like you and me and dont have the sort of drive or vision that someone like Howerd Bernstein, who started on the council as a clerk, have.I hear more about Mr Bernstein than i do Tim Riordan, the Chief Executive in Leeds.Frankly im of the mind these days that perhaps we should have a Boris Johnson type mayor and take up the possible offer of the funding that will go with that given by Osbourne.Either that or we carry on as we are, moaning and groaning about a slow, inept and visionless council who are merely trying to score points against each other in the political ring     Hear hear. I agree with every word.In Leeds we have the Paul Weller school of politics - " the public want what the public gets" and change is desperately needed.According to the YEP this week Mr Riordon takes home over £200k a year. I see precious little evidence of that being value for our money.

As we were visiting the theatre last night we decided to use the bus so we could have a couple of drinks.Never again. It's probably the first time in 4 years that I've been on a bus and I have no desire to repeat the experience again.We left our house at 4.30pm so we could get something to eat in Leeds before the show. You can see the bus stop from our front door, so we know that no buses came while were were walking to the stop. The service (56) doesn't have a timetable during the day, but offers an 'every 10 minutes service'.We waited 27 minutes for a bus to arrive, despite living just a handful of stops from the terminus. Needless to say, in true comedy style, two buses arrived together running in close convoy as they would all the way into Leeds.The journey into Leeds also took an age, despite the much vaunted York Road Misguided Busways and the fact that the inbound traffic at that time was remarkably light.After the show, I checked the bus times on my phone and we decided to walk down to the Corn Exchange to get a number 40 home. Despite this being just a couple of stops from the starting point on Infirmary street, the bus was already several minutes late when it arrived - it's nice how the electronic display counts down to "Due" and then just stays like that no matter how late the bus is. We then had the delights of "music" from another passengers tinny mobile phone speaker all the way up York Road along with a couple of other passengers arguing with the driver about their tickets. Again, it took an age to get home.Then there is the cost. it cost us £3.90 each, so £7.80 in total. For just two trips this is little short of extortionate. I could have driven into Leeds and parked in a secure car park for considerably less (or just £2 to park on the street after 6pm). The cost of diesel would have been negligible (our car does 60+mpg so a 5 mile return trip would have used less than a 6th of a gallon) and we could have gone door to car park in half the time the bus took.This answers the question why bus passenger numbers are falling so dramatically in Leeds. Why on earth would anyone use this "service" unless they had to? Next time I'll drive and forgo having a couple of beers as it just isn't worth the hassle.*rant over, thanks for listening

Thats weird Ravet as i did almost exactly the same to get to town yesterday.After a number of years (i swore i would never get back ona bus to/from town again because of the"clientele" on the bus) we had a trip to town on the bus.The difference being was that the bus was on time , it was quick and it was clean.However, i would guess it will be some years before i get on one again