A Voyage Around Leeds Bus Station

I can see Leeds Bus station from the Culture Vulture office window. All day you can hear the local buses squeal and shudder as they swing in from York Street and beep as they reverse before thundering away down Duke Street. And there are always National Express coaches shooting off to exotic places like Llandudno and Loughborough and Luton.

I’d say it looked like a pretty busy place.

I can remember when the National Express coach station was on Wellington Street. Although I have many happy memories of romantic reunions in that blasted, badly maintained bomb-site of a coach park (hello Cathy if you’re reading this – and Katie and Paula and Annabelle and Laura and Jo and … hell, it was a very busy place for me in the 80’s and 90’s), the new place is immeasurably better. You can actually disembark comfortably and launch into a passionate embrace without fear of tripping into a pothole that’s ankle deep with sump oil and indescribable filth (sorry Cathy! I still owe you those shoes. Hope the elbow fracture doesn’t trouble so much these days. Ah, we were young, infatuated … and uninsured.)

Back then I’d say it was fairly self-evident which way to leave the National Express station to get into Leeds if you were new in town – you could see the Queens Hotel and the train station once you were safely on the street. I can’t recall anyone asking for directions. I guess if I were a virgin visitor to Leeds these days and had come by coach I’d instinctively exit through the place above, the National Express office. That’ll be signposted, obviously.

Actually there isn’t much relevant local information to be found anywhere in there, just lots of leaflets enticing you to visit faraway places and travel offers on local theme parks. But just outside there’s one of those new Leeds maps and signposts (which, as I said yesterday, are genuinely good though I suspect work best for people who already have a clear idea of where they need to be.) If you are feeling adventurous and just want to have a poke around the city you have two directions to chose from.

This way would seem the most likely option as there’s plenty of people. It looks lively, as if something is going on up there.

The other way not so much … there’s obviously stuff going on over the road but it looks like a pain to get to.

There’s also a road behind this building – it’s mentioned on one of the signposts. But would you want to investigate what’s behind there? Even with those friendly smiling approachable young police officers on that gigantic poster the place has a kind of Eastern Bloc political rehabilitation centre look about it, and I’m not sure I’d want to risk getting too close.

The other possibility is to walk through the bus station. There’s a useful, and massive, signpost right inside – cash machines, first aid, and the information centre (even the Town Hall; very civic minded of Metro) – and plenty of people in uniform milling about who look like they know what they are doing. There’s food too (ok, we’d much prefer a nice little indie wouldn’t we, but this is a bus station. For people who take public transport.)

Coming out of the other side of the bus station you are on a main road again so have the choice of turning right or left (funny how most of our walking direction decisions are determined by the needs of private care users, isn’t it!)

Turn left and you come across one of the few “cultural” signposts I’m aware of (not that I go looking for them, and it took me a while to fathom that awful clown mask logo was meant to indicate “culture”. What bloody century are we in? … fetch my powdered wig, wake the coachman and water the horses, we are going to a ball with a baronet tonight!)

If you choose to go the way of culture you’ll end up around the bend.

why any newcomer to Leeds would walk any further than this down a cramped, confined, dark path, protected from the constant roar of traffic by a sturdy metal barrier, is anybody’s guess. It may look almost pleasant in the sunshine, but when it rains the puddles can swallow half the path and if you don’t time your run for the pedestrian crossing exactly to the second you risk getting blasted by the tyre spray from an accelerating motorist.

And the fact that you have to brave three lanes of serious traffic to reach the other side would surely put off any but the most hardened urban explorer. Which is in fact a great shame as beside the obvious candidates for Leeds’ newest cultural quarter – the Playhouse, Northern Dance, the BBC and the College of Music – there’s Munro House with a brilliant independent book shop, art gallery and coffee shop (it’s less than two minutes from the bus station, there’s no excuse to suffer Greggs ever again.)

Most people though would probably turn and head back to the bus station. It’ll not win any architectural or design awards but at least you know where you are.

Well, sort of. You always know where the shopping is at least. This is Leeds! Why would anyone want to know where Richmond Hill was though? I haven’t been for a while, I’ll admit, but does this mean I’m missing out on something? Richmond Hill is in Bold, making it equal in importance to Shopping … Eastgate isn’t in bold. The playhouse isn’t in bold. Even the Arena isn’t in bold. So, what is the secret of Richmond Hill? What amazing delights are in store for me on the way to Osmondthorpe? What is Halton hiding? Somebody, please, tell me!

Ignoring the signs, most people would instinctively head this way.

Many people who arrive in Leeds by coach are only here for twenty minutes for a tea/toilet/telephone break on their way to another destination. I imagine the image above is the abiding impression of Leeds for those temporary visitors. For many tourists Leeds will always mean the Mecca and next to it a menacing park strewn with empty White Lightning bottles and peppered with dog ends. They will never know that within one minute’s walk there are several fabulous pubs and bars, a couple of great coffee shops, a handful of brilliant places to eat, and some of the finest examples of Victorian Civic architecture in the country … sadly, I have met people who seriously think that all there is to Leeds is bingo and park-bench boozing.

Still, I imagine plenty of casual visitors get to find Leeds Market. The York Street entrance next to the bus station is frankly abysmal – I was too embarrassed to take a photo from a better angle as the place looked about as appealing as a stroll through a council dump, litter everywhere – but once you are into the place it’s genuinely cheerful and full of life and colour (and enormous amounts of second hand shoes, for all your pre-owned footwear requirements.)

Still, on a lovely sunny day the place is quite striking. And that’s some handsome signage. You can’t get lost with that.

But just in case you did find yourself without direction or in a similar trying predicament you are never more than a few feet from an emergency phone box these days in Leeds. And this one outside the bus station has to be my favourite. Who wouldn’t want to spend a few moments of calm reflection beneath a shady tree before getting on the phone to report that stolen wallet or misplaced passport? Such a charming location.

Only three lanes of traffic to get to the “Cultural Quarter”.

I haven’t a clue how I came to think this but it’s always seemed to me that people without cars are considered the problem for transport planners …

It is nice though that waiting for the second set of lights to change to cross this ridiculously busy road (yes, halfway across, only one more set of lights!) we can sit and admire some pretty greenery.

Still waiting for the lights to change …

Motorists get much better information than pedestrians.

And here’s a pedestrian’s point of view of the road you have to cross to get back to the bus station if you have ventured to grab a decent cup of coffee at Cafe 164, a mere 50 yards from the bus station entrance … you’ll need that double shot of espresso to sharpen your wits if you are going to make it back over there in one piece.

A couple of things I did notice on my voyage around the bus station was just how ugly, intrusive, and not very helpful (to pedestrians) most of the signage and traffic lights etc. are, but also how green and pleasant the city was despite that … by the way, that large fist in the bottom left corner of the last pic is not a new art installation in York Street park. Though if any of the people who are commissioning public art for the cultural side of the Tour de France are reading this I think it really could work. Obviously it’s a conceptual piece. I call it “Road Sage” … think I’m going to have to work on that title.