Almost £200 million will be spent on improvements to West Yorkshire's transport system, the Government revealed yesterday.

The money, announced by the Department for Transport as part of its local transport settlements, will cover the three years from 2008-11.

Under the deal West Yorkshire will receive £106.1m to maintain its roads and £93m to develop transport projects such as better street lighting, park and ride facilities or cycle lanes - or any projects costing less than £5m.

In addition, the county will receive £11.4m for road safety measures - including speed cameras. It will be up to the councils to decide how the money is spent.

The three-year allocations have been introduced in place of the usual annual grants in an attempt to give councils greater certainty to plan their spending.

A breakdown of the £93m shows £29m will be received in 2008/09, £31m the next year and £32m in 2010/11. In addition Bradford is set to receive £2.2m over the next three years for maintaining and strengthening bridges and a further £932,000 for detrunked roads maintenance.

Councillor Ryk Downes, chairman of the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority which operates under the name of Metro, said: "The announcement is in line with what we expected and means Metro can press ahead with projects such as the renewal of Pudsey bus station and continue its programmes to replace bus shelters, provide further real time displays at those shelters and improve CCTV coverage over the West Yorkshire transport network.

"However it does not address the long-term shortfall in Government transport spending from which the Yorkshire and Humber has suffered, and which we will continue to address through our work to combat growing congestion across the Leeds City Region."

Bradford spokesman for Metro, Councillor Chris Greaves, said: "The headline figure seems much better than the reality.

"We remain the worst funded area in the country. We only get one-third per head compared with London. What we must wait to find out is how much funding we will get when the free national concessionary fares come in, as we do not know how much we will get for that."

Transport Minister Rosie Winterton, who announced that Yorkshire and Humber would receive a total of £504 million for local transport, said: "It will help take forward schemes specifically targeted to improve safety, reduce congestion or upgrade facilities for pedestrians and cyclists."