Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry Day 9
May 14 2014
On Day 9 Mr Gordon Robertson,
Signals Engineer and witness for the Applicant NGT concluded his time as a
witness facing cross examination from several objectors and was followed by Mr
Jason Smith who began by giving an engineering perspective on the work that
would be required to implement the proposed trolleybus system.
Audio recordings of all sessions
today are linked below. The early
afternoon session broke for five minutes after Mr Robertson completed and the
next witness came on.
I should express my gratitude to
the several colleagues who have been assisting with the recording of the Public
Enquiry and without whom only a fraction would be covered.
In the first session of day 9 of
the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry May 14, 2014, Professor Bonsall continues to cross
examine Gordon Robertson, Signals Engineer for NGT planning and Mr Malcolm
Bell, private objector and mechanical engineer follows, including questions on
flow and how this would all affect emergency services.
In the late morning session of
day 9 of the Leeds Trolleybus Enquiry, May 14 2014, the cross examination of Mr
Gordon Robertson, Signals Engineer, continues with questions from Dr John
Dickinson for Weetwood Residents' Association, Cllr Barry Anderson (C., Adel)
and Douglas Kemp, Chair of West Park Residents' Association, focussing on
effects on pedestrians, and flows at new junctions among other technical road
issues.
The first part of the early
afternoon session of day 9 at the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, May 14 2014.
The final part of Mr Gordon Robertson's cross examination.
The second part of the early
afternoon session of day 9 at the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, May 14 2014.
Mr Jason Smith begins his time as a witness by explaining engineering
requirements and is questioned by Mr Neil Cameron QC on these matters.
In the final afternoon session of
day 9 of the Leeds Trolleybus Public Enquiry, May 14 2014. Mr Jason Smith
continues to be questioned on engineering requirements by Mr Neil Cameron QC on
these matters. Following this, Chris Longley of the Federation of Small
Businesses and who has experience of the Sheffield Supertram begins his cross
examination with questions on serious engineering detail.
The amount of technical detail
which has been covered in the last couple of days is immense and has somewhat
boggled me at times.
The detail has seemed to focus
largely on how junctions can be optimised, and how the traffic signalling
works, timings and so forth.
An interpretation that one of my
co objectors drew from some of this was that the works that could be done to
improve traffic flows without introducing the trolleybus have been held back in
favour of a grandiose ‘prestige’ system.
It has been suggested that these improvements should be made without a
trolleybus, I am not sure whether this would include all the road widenings and
tree losses or simply junction and lights improvements, but either way there is
the point that little seems to have been done with the present system to truly
optimise it.
Mr Robertson came across well and
in an engaging manner which softened the objectors to him in a way that could
not be said of his predecessors, and we did feel that he was a competent
technical witness in the main, although we perhaps bumped into the limits on
his vision when he said in response to Malcolm Bell’s searching questioning
about whether a truly intelligent and adaptive computer mastering system for
the traffic light management could be introduced, that he thought we had not
only one of the best systems he had ever seen, a credible statement, but that
he believed it could not be improved upon.
Such a statement of overconfidence was quite uncharacteristic of what we
had seen of Mr Robertson. I wouldn’t
suggest that he might purposely mislead the Enquiry, but professional pride in
one’s skills and achievements can blind one to the possibility that others
might be able to improve on your work.
I myself had a short question
about buses from Shaw Lane and how they might be affected by trolleybuses
coming out of Alma Road, the answer to which I did feel was on the speculative
side but delivered with more assurance than I felt it deserved. But perhaps I am just a layperson who
doesn’t understand.
I inadvertently incurred the
displeasure of the Inspector when, for the last question of the morning
session, I appended an enquiry as to what Mr Robertson thought of the cost to
the local environment and community with loss of trees and so forth and whether
it was worth it, for which I was sternly rebuked by the Inspector. Had I known I would bring his ire down upon
my head I would have spared my breath. Not
that I was expecting him to say anything major, rather it was an attempt to see
him as a whole person who was not simply a technician.
Technical skill is a marvellous
and useful thing, but to only see the world through that left brain view is to
limit what we are capable of. It is a
reflection on the values of our culture that we have lost touch with the other
aspects of life so that even though the heritage and environmental issues are
being strongly argued it may well, though not absolutely certainly, be decided
on brute facts, or rather claims, of being able to move so many people per hour
at such and such a speed. So a heritage
environment that has survived largely intact could be eviscerated for entirely
utilitarian reasons. Imagine if someone
tried to do this to Venice. It would be
laughed out of the room. Okay,
Headingley is not Venice, but along with a few other villages and suburbs of
old Leeds such as Chapel Allerton it is a remnant of a rich historical past
which should not be wilfully thrown away.
There is a radical disconnect
between the functionality of the machines and systems which should be serving
us and our need for the continuity and preservation of our communities and
their environments. In a rational world
the latter of these would take priority and the former would serve it, so that
the systems serve the people. But this
natural order is reversed and the communities and environments become entirely
subject to the control and domination of outside influences exercised through
the imposing of mechanic systems onto people’s lives. I’m reminded of Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’, people being driven
through the cogs and wheels of a machine.
Until we are able to create
systems which when implemented serve the local population rather than making
the people serve those systems, then we will have neither freedom nor
functionality.
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