The Council as revealed that it is tracking the movements of people between the station city centre gateway and areas at Monks Cross during September “to help get a better idea of pedestrian and cycle movements in York”.

A Council report admits, “As this is a free trial the number of devices are limited but this will show how effective (or not) tracking people through their bluetooth enabled mobile phones is”.

No consultation took place before the trial started.

The Council has also implemented a new web site which is apparently aimed at explaining travel choices in York. www.itravelyork.info

It offers a travel planner which compares the time taken to complete a journey using different types of transport. Given the compact size of the City, and the differing factors which can influence how long – say – a bus can take to complete a journey, many will be sceptical about the benefits of such a site.

One example plugged into the journey planner revealed that the Foxwood Lane to York University bus trip should take “37 minutes” compared to 20 minutes by car. (In August the actual bus journey time for this trip peaked at 90 minutes).

The site fails to indentify the time taken to walk (about an hour), to cycle (about 35 minutes) or by moped (15 minutes), although this may be a module that is added at a later date.

In most tests done in the City battery powered bikes turned out to be the quickest way of getting from A to B for most journey types.

But it all depends on how much you are carrying and how many destinations you have to visit before you return home or to the workplace.

Real time information provided via the web to mobile phones and displays at sub-urban bus stops would be higher priority for many travellers.

York is currently benefiting from high levels of government transport grant. These include
• Local sustainable transport grant of £4 million
• Better bus fund £3 million

Little of this funding is scheduled to be invested in the Westfield/Acomb side of the City.

Labour are, however, still threatening to go ahead with their 20 mph speed limit covering the whole of the area despite recent accident statistics for City’s like Portsmouth which showed that –following the introduction of wide area 20 mph limits – the numbers of people killed or seriously injured increased significantly.

The Council should rethink this policy

City of York has won gold in this year’s Yorkshire in Bloom competition!

The results were announced at York Racecourse and confirmed the city was a gold award winner in the city category together with five other individual entrants.

Gold awards were also won by individual entries from across the city and the winners were:

Dunnington in the small town category;

Middlethorpe Hall and Spa in the large hotel category;

Homestead Park in the parks and gardens category;

Naburn Lock Caravan Park in the camping and chalet parks category; and

Rosevale Care Home in Wigginton.

York’s other top category performer was Earswick Scented Garden which in the It’s Your Neighbourhood Award, secured an Outstanding judgement.