Bradford is heading for traffic gridlock as increasing numbers of commuters bring the city grinding to a halt.

New Government statistics show booming car usage is slowing the city centre down - with peak-hour traffic flows falling from an average of 21.3 miles per hour in 1993 to just 19.5 mph.

The figures, comparing 1993 and 1997 - the last available - have been released as the Government begins an all-out drive to cut pollution caused by traffic jams.

West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority is currently holding a major public consultation exercise on a five-year plan which it announced last year to eradicate the county's traffic jams.

It proposes major improvements in public transport, including a £9 million hi-tech guided-bus lane on Manchester Road.

The vehicles would travel down special tracks in the middle of the road and would have priority at traffic lights.

The WYPTA said when it unveiled the plan that traffic levels were predicted to grow by 16.5 per cent by the year 2010 - but they believed the measures could bring it down to 7.5 per cent.

Now Liberal Democrats on Bradford Council want the WYPTA to attend a meeting of the new External Scrutiny Committee, which deals with transport.

They have put a notice of motion to next Tuesday's Council meeting that the transport chiefs should attend the committee meeting as soon as possible.

The Liberal Democrats want to look at the cost of halting traffic growth over the next ten years, rather than just reducing it.

They also want to know what public and private sector investment is expected, particularly for park and ride schemes, bus rail links and transport corridors.

External Scrutiny member Councillor Ann Ozolins (Lib Dem, Idle) said the group was opposed to the plan because it did not go far enough and wanted to see further measures.

She said: "Park and ride schemes have been talked about a great deal for Bradford but have not materialised."

But Coun Latif Darr, transport member on the Council's Executive Committee, said it had been introduced on a fairly small scale in some areas and they were constantly looking for other sites.

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