[2] By 2004, disquiet about rising costs had caused the scheme to be scaled back, and it was finally cancelled in 2005 by the Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling.

The eastern branch would have run to Seacroft and Whinmoor, and the southern arm would have served Hunslet, Belle Isle and Middleton with another park and ride by the M621 motorway.

However, work to construct the system that was due to start in earnest in 2004 was suspended because of costs that were originally £500 million had risen far above this level to figures around £1 billion.

This had resulted in a cut back to the system that would have seen Line 1 only go from the city centre to the park and ride site at Stourton and this would have saved £250 million from the construction of the scheme and efforts were made to lower development costs along the other planned routes.

[6] Kieran Preston, the Director General of West Yorkshire Metro at the time of the Supertram project, claimed in 2013 that money could have been saved by finding new solutions to engineering problems, and by postponing a 4.3-mile (6.9 km) stretch of the southern line so that it would only run from Leeds city centre to Stourton park and ride.

Research undertaken by West Yorkshire Metro and the government claimed that a BRT network could deliver some of the benefits of Supertram with lower capital costs due to unsegregated routes and greater flexibility, but with a higher long-term cost due to shorter life expectancy of rolling stock.

[8] The Leeds FTR service initially served the boroughs of Pudsey and Seacroft until the Wright StreetCars were redeployed and refurbished in 2012 to operate on the Leeds-Bradford bus corridor.

[20] On 7 March 2024, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority announced plans to build a tram line connecting Leeds and Bradford in several phases.