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Birmingham Transport Plan preliminary draft published by council

Birmingham City Council has published (Jan 13) a draft plan illustrating their vision for the future of transport in the city.

Adding to the existing Birmingham Connected transport strategy, the draft Birmingham Transport Plan, covers a set of principles to aid future investment in transport to serve more people, homes and jobs, while also generating a better environment in which to live and work for everyone irrespective of age, disability or income.

These ideas are designed to reduce transport’s damaging impact on the environment, supporting Birmingham’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, whilst also making the roads safer, connecting people with new jobs and training opportunities, prioritising people over cars and revitalizing the city centre and local centres.

The plan sets out four ‘big moves’, designed to work cohesively.

• Reallocating road space which means moving away from single occupancy private cars to support the delivery of a public transport system. One that is fit for a global city, fundamentally changing the way that people and goods move about the city.
• Transforming the city centre by the creation of a network of pedestrian streets and public spaces integrated with public transport services and cycling infrastructure. Access to the city centre for private cars will be limited with no through trips. This includes looking at different options for the central section of the A38 including re-routing it to an upgraded ring road.
• Prioritising active travel in local neighbourhood by ideally making walking and cycling people’s preferred mode for travelling around their local area. Cars will no longer dominate street life around homes and schools, a limit of 20mph will be standard on all local roads and residential neighbourhoods and local centres will be places where people are the priority.
• Managing the demand for parking through parking measures. Parking will be used as a means to manage demand for travel by car through availability, pricing and restrictions. Where development possible exists, land currently occupied by car parking will be put to more productive use.

The plan will go for cabinet approval on the January 21, then it will go out to public consultation from January 28, before a final version is officially adopted by the council.

Councillor Waseem Zaffar, cabinet member for transport and environment, said: “As a city, we have been over-reliant on private cars for too long and with more people choosing to live and work in Birmingham, we need to find innovative new ways to keep the city moving in an efficient but sustainable way.

“The more journeys we take by walking and cycling, the more we will improve air quality and our health and the more we will reduce congestion. For longer journeys, buses, trams and trains will be the backbone of a new, go-anywhere transport system.

“The Birmingham Transport Plan, once adopted, will continue to build on these strong foundations, future-proofing our transport system and ensuring that we are able to move around our city in a faster, more efficient way with cleaner air and less congestion.”