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Chapter III – part two: A large town

Journeys to work: 186–194

 Novermber 1963    The Buchanan Report    Chapter 3ii  
Contents • Chapter 3ii • Journeys to work

Car ownership in Leeds is at present slightly below the national average, but we assumed it would reach the future national figure of 400 cars per 1,000 population in the year 2010.

  • Fig. 109 Estimated car ownership levels in Leeds in 2010.
    Fig. 109 Estimated car ownership levels in Leeds in 2010.

Journeys to work

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We estimated that the future number of people living and working in Leeds would be 228,500, with about 20,000 travelling out of the city to work every day and about 46,000 travelling in to work. We then sub-divided the area of the city into ten residential and ten employment zones, and estimated the number of workers living or employed in these zones with a further breakdown between those employed in manufacturing industries and those otherwise employed (Figures 108 and 110). We knew from existing statistics that, for the whole city, 56% of the employed persons worked in manufacturing industry, and we built up the figure for each employment zone from figures available for the postal areas. We assumed that 75% of the non-manufacturing employment was in or near the city centre and 8% (or 30% of the remainder) within the residential areas. The remaining workers were ‘allocated’ proportionately to each employment area, with a ‘weighting’ to take account of some preference for proximity between home to workplace.

Fig. 108 The ten residential zones used for the analysis of the work journeys.
Fig. 108 The ten residential zones used for the analysis of the work journeys.
Fig. 110 The ten employment zones used for the analysis of the work journeys.
Fig. 110 The ten employment zones used for the analysis of the work journeys.
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Thus we established the major movements of people between residential areas and employment centres. We could have obtained a finer picture had we been able to divide the city into a greater number of zones, but the number of cross-calculations that are involved increase rapidly as the number of zones is increased, and it would have been beyond our resources to deal with a much larger number.

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We then had to consider by what means of transport these movements would be made. Car ownership in Leeds is at present slightly below the national average, but we assumed it would reach the future national figure of 400 cars per 1,000 population in the year 2010. This gave a total of nearly 210,000 cars for the city. But we realised that ownership would not be evenly spread (Figure 109 above), and so we assumed a variation from an average of about 2 cars, in some of the northern outskirts of the city, to about 0.9 cars per household in the innermost residential areas. For our first exercise we assumed that the use of cars would be uninhibited by traffic congestion or restrictions, but a good deal influenced by such factors as the number of workers in the family, the availability and convenience of public transport, and the likelihood of people walking to work if the journey were half a mile or under. From all this we concluded that the proportion of people who would desire to go to work by private transport would vary between 56% and 83% depending on the kind and location of the residential area involved. Figure 111 shows the ‘mode of travel’ for the work journeys from each of the ten residential areas or zones and to each of the ten industrial zones, for these conditions of full car ownership and unrestrained use.

Fig. 111. The mode of travel ex-residential areas (<em>left</em>) and ex-employment areas (<em>right</em>) for the work journeys in 2010. The key shows the proportions for the various modes of travel for the total work journeys in the city. The total number of movements is less than the total employed population shown in Figure 108 as it does not include persons who both live and work in the same zone.
Fig. 111. The mode of travel ex-residential areas (left) and ex-employment areas (right) for the work journeys in 2010. The key shows the proportions for the various modes of travel for the total work journeys in the city. The total number of movements is less than the total employed population shown in Figure 108 as it does not include persons who both live and work in the same zone.
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We were now able to draw the critical desire line diagram for the work journeys. This is shown in Figure 112. It indicates the number of vehicular journeys in 2010 which will be desired between the employment and residential zones during the peak hour. For the purpose of this diagram it has been assumed that the movements allocated to ‘public transport’ in Figure 111 would take place by bus since there is little short-distance transport by rail in Leeds. Most of these journeys will be concentrated into a short space of time, and will form a major component of the peak period flows. In order to determine the volume of traffic that will arise during the peak hour, we assumed that at least the present amount of ‘staggering’ of working hours can be maintained so that, considering the city as a whole, no more than 70% of the total work journey movement takes place during this critical period. Figure 112 clearly illustrates the effect of the great concentration of employment in and around the central part of the city.

Fig. 112 Desire lines for the work-journeys by vehicle during the peak hour in 2010. The centres of gravity of the residential zones are indicated by the red circles and those of the employment zones by the blue circles. The grey lines represent movements between employment zones and residential zones within the City; the blue lines movements between employment zones in the city and residences outside; the red lines movement between workplaces outside and residential zones inside the city.
Fig. 112 Desire lines for the work-journeys by vehicle during the peak hour in 2010. The centres of gravity of the residential zones are indicated by the red circles and those of the employment zones by the blue circles. The grey lines represent movements between employment zones and residential zones within the City; the blue lines movements between employment zones in the city and residences outside; the red lines movement between workplaces outside and residential zones inside the city.
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