What do you think of the View?

This is the second question in my series of passenger enquiries, handed out on the trips I take. Responses are collected in a number of albums in the Waiting Room at PSL.

What do people say? Visit the gallery to find out.

Number of respondents so far who have asked: 'What has this got to do with art?' One.

Omnibus

First recorded use of the word: 1829

Literal translation from the Latin: For Everyone

'I love a public road'

– wrote Wordsworth in The Prelude:

... few sights there are
That please me more. ...the lonely roads
Were schools to me in which I daily read
With most delight the passions of mankind,
There saw into the depth of human souls.


For him the road was the essence of sociability, a place to meet people and listen to their stories. How the world has changed! Yesterday I walked in the rain south from Quarry Moor Nature Reserve on the edge of Ripon, towards Markenfield Hall on the A61. Sociable? You are more likely to meet a unicorn on a main road in the countryside than a fellow pedestrian. The roadside has become the most a-social and least hospitable place in the world; dangerous, noisy, smelly, polluted and wet.

Wet in particular, because there is no pavement so you have to walk in the long grass on the verge, and spray is thrown continuously at your legs.

The bus can rescue us – time and again if necessary – from the purgatory of the roadside. Not just because it is nearly always there, passing every 20 minutes in either direction, but because (despite limited stops in town) it stops at all sorts of interesting country places: Dunkeswick Lane, Nidd Bridge, Markington Crossroads; places you could never stop in a private vehicle.

So although the bus is a creature of the road, it reclaims the road from the tyranny of the car.

Public transport history

Urban transport systems are a modern phenomenon. Until the middle of the 19th century working people lived within walking distance of where they worked, and the middle classes used their own transport to get to and from their leafy dwellings. Only in the second half of the Victorian age did rising wages create the social mobility that could fund public transport. The first horse tram began operation in Leeds in 1872.

Wheeled transport over longer distances was constrained for years by the poor state of the roads. Travellers rode on horseback, or by horse litter. Goods were carried on packhorses. Traditionally, the upkeep of highways was the responsibility of parishes, who generally had little interest in through traffic. Turnpike roads, managed privately by trusts who levied tolls on road users and used the money to improve and maintain the carriageway, eventually solved the problem of increasing road traffic during the second half of the 18th century. There was huge opposition to the new Turnpikes from local people who could no longer drive carts or livestock wherever they pleased without charge, and this resentment caused riots at Otley, Harewood and Leeds in 1753.

However the new roads paved the way for the Stagecoach era. The first scheduled coach from Leeds to London started in 1708, but it took another 60 years to reduce the journey time for the 200 mile ride to less than 3 days. By 1838 (the high point of coaching) there were 10 or 11 services between Leeds and Harrogate via Harewood, on the route still used by the 36 bus. Coaches ran from particular Inns, and coaching inns like the (former) Old Kings Arms in Briggate became important centres of public life.

[To be continued]

Waiting Room

The Waiting Room, part of Town and Country at PSL, now contains various works relating to the residency:

• Leeds to Harrogate in 11 minutes, filmed with a camera mounted next to the ticket machine on a scheduled bus

• Slideshow of still pictures from buses, towns and countryside

• 36 Routemap

• Press cuttings, and books about buses

• 'What will you do when you get there?' 150 answers to a passenger questionnaire, collected into albums

Mystery Tour

SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER 2009

I will be leading a Mystery Tour using a chartered No. 36 bus, and broadly following the 36 route north out of Leeds. My on-board commentary will relate some of the route's history, with reference to theories of landscape appreciation. The bus will visit venues en route; prepare for hidden gems and unexpected occurrences. This tour involves some walking over difficult terrain, so please wear stout footwear. Not advisable for wheelchairs or buggies.

Meet 11.00am at PSL (return to PSL by 3.30pm)

Tickets £8 / £5 concessions (includes tour and lunch)

Places are limited so booking is essential:
Tel: 07930 236383
Email: info@projectspaceleeds.org.uk
or pop into the gallery during opening hours Wed-Sat 12-5pm

PSL [Project Space Leeds]
Whitehall Waterfront, 2 Riverside Way, Leeds, LS1 4EH, UK
Download a map from www.projectspaceleeds.org.uk

You will be transported