BRADFORD, UK – As Haniyya Ejaz boarded her crowded morning train north of Bradford, an automatic announcement tinged with joy Yorkshire accent bell, “Welcome aboard this train north to Leeds.”
However, the 10-mile stretch between the two cities is not welcome for Ms Ejaz, whose daily train to her classes at a Leeds college is often plagued with delays, shortages, and delays. staff, overcrowding and flight cancellations. Her home, Bradford, has been given the dubious title of the worst connected city in the UK researchreflects a common problem across northern England.
Ms Ejaz, a 19-year-old student at the University of Leeds, said: ‘Usually my train is late or on time, but I will find out that it is unmanned. “I think trains are going to be a lot more reliable, because you don’t have traffic. But it’s just as bad as the bus, if not worse.”
Bradford’s transport problems are just one symptom of the economic neglect that has long plagued the north of England, where growth, jobs and healthcare have largely lagged behind. far from the south. Successive governments have pledged to tackle the issue, including most recently the Prime Minister’s administration Boris Johnsoncommitted person “Upgrade” north and bring to it the prosperity of the south.
One initiative – one 96 billion pounds (approximately $120 billion) Integrated Rail Plan including a high-speed rail project, HS2 – has been promoted by the government in recent years as a key effort to ease traffic difficulties of the North.
But in November, Britain’s Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, suggested that a plan for the east leg of the line – the branch towards Leeds – was in the works. fall indefinitely.
Adding salt to the wounds of local people, a request of Bradford Council and some advocates for an east-to-west line linking major northern cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Bradford to be incorporated into another line, the Northern Powerhouse Rail, and a new service Upgraded station in Bradford was ignored.
“A new line from Manchester to Leeds via a new station in Bradford will cost an additional £10 billion alone,” a Department for Transport spokesman said in a statement.
Dreams of better railways are evaporating, angering many in the affected areas and leaving the government in London feeling betrayed. best connection in UK.
“A lot of things in the North are forgotten,” Ms. Ejaz said. “People have accepted that this is the standard of the train service they have.”
Mandy Ridyard, a director at Produmax, an aerospace plant in Bradford that makes parts for companies including Boeing, said one of her employees resigned last year because of the condition. bad traffic on the way from his home in Manchester, about 30km away. That road, the M62, is a stretch of highway that includes some of the most congested areas in the UK.
“After three or four years of not getting home in time to see the kids off to bed, he gave up because the traffic was getting worse,” Ms. Ridyard said. “We’re just asking for what other parts of the country have had forever.”
Bradford, a city of over half a million inhabitants, is British youngest city. More than a quarter of its population is under the age of 18, but nearly 10 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds receiving unemployment-related benefits, a number about twice the national average for that age group, according to figures shared by Bradford Council with The New York Times.
At the factory, which hangs a poster of a superhero in a cap in a warehouse declaring, “Technical superheroes this way,” about 20 percent of the employees are teenagers completing apprenticeship programaccording to the company.
Ms Ridyard said she was concerned that failure to improve rail connections could affect social mobility in inner-city areas of Bradford, as well as in commuter towns and cities surroundings, and adversely affect young people.
“If you have to have a car to get somewhere because the train connection is not working,” she said, “we are not talking about a level playing field.”
To make up for the abandonment of high-speed rail, the government has introduced a number of concessional upgrades on existing lines. Quaint Victorian rail lines will be electrified, cutting journey times for some existing lines (journeys to Bradford from Leeds will be cut almost in half under the new scheme). And capacity on the Northern train service will be increased. But there is no certain date for when all of this will be completed.
Years of travel chaos on Northern the railway, with its aging and understaffed fleet, has seen the franchise, operated by Arriva Rail North and owned by Deutsche Bahn in Germany, taken over by the government in March 2020 .”Passengers lose faith in Northern railway networkMr. Shapps announced.
The few months before the 2019 general election saw a landslide victory As for the Conservatives, which had succeeded in winning over traditional Labor voters in the north, Mr Johnson pledged to fund the Northern Powerhouse railway between Manchester and Leeds to “turbocharge regional growth and prosperity” in the area.
Bradford Council says the Northern Factory Railroad proposals will support Bradford’s economy by approximately £30 billion, creating 27,000 new jobs by 2060.
Now, the last leg has left a bitter taste for many people.
Jim O’Neill, a principal architect of the Northern Powerhouse strategy, and a former adviser in Prime Minister Theresa May’s government, who preceded Mr Johnson.
“It was pretty clear at least two years ago that Bradford was not going to have this happen,” said Mr O’Neill, who was in government at the time. government at the time, and who said plans to build a new station in Bradford were deemed too expensive.
A Department for Transport spokesman did not address the statements of Mr O’Neill, who is now vice president. Cooperation with power plants in the North, a lobbying group, but told The Times that the government has not yet canceled the eastern leg of HS2. He said: “The Integrated Rail Plan spends £100m looking at the most efficient ways to bring HS2 trains to Leeds, and further work will be done to assess the best options. .
Not everyone is in favor of the high-speed rail line in the North.
Edna Small, 77, a retired teacher, moved to Church Fenton, a village in North Yorkshire surrounded by lush countryside, in 2007. According to the proposed HS2 plan several years in later, Church Fenton, with an estimated population of about 1,500will be one of the last stops on its eastern leg.
After news broke that a 50-foot viaduct would rumble through the quiet outskirts of the village, and her home would be pinched by the viaduct and local train station on either side, she Small joined an anti-HS2 advocacy group.
The shutdown of the East arm of HS2 provides a sense of relief, even as Ms. Small, 77, has sold her home, whose market value has, she said, been reduced due to the railway planning.
“It would destroy the entire area,” she said. “It was a vanity project,” she said.
“But Bradford was left in a wobbly state,” admitted Miss Small. “The government makes promises they never keep.”
