The region has fallen behind when it comes to tramway systems - Yorkshire Post Letters

It is interesting to read that the government in Spain has introduced new tramway systems to 17 communities with the aim of providing the maximum number of their citizens with the option of a journey to work by clean, comfortable, reliable public transport as an alternative to the car. An additional benefit of this being to make city centres more pleasant places to visit.

This is a country which intends taking positive steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than playing gesture politics with the subject.

It is unlikely that there will be queues of Yorkshire Post readers outside the local branch of W.H.Smith to obtain a copy of Tramways and Urban Transit magazine which has featured this matter with interesting comments by the editor Matt Johnston.

The creators of the periodical, the Light Rail Transit Association, came into existence in 1937 though their campaigning efforts were met only by new trams for Glasgow, Sheffield and Blackpool in the early post-war period and at a later time a certain rail line in London being named the Docklands Light Railway. In addition the Tyne and Wear Metro uses similar tramway technology to the Docklands system.

At the same time Leeds was being promoted as the motorway city of the north and we continue to await the day when Leeds will catch up with Newcastle upon Tyne in public transport terms.

Another notable point is that the latest trams for the Birmingham to Wolverhampton system have battery assistance allowing the trams to run without overhead wires outside Wolverhampton railway station before reverting to overhead line supply on the stretches of track where they are required to run at full speed so the objection to overhead wires in sensitive locations no longer exists.