Source: Draft Birmingham Transport Plan
The City of Birmingham in England released their draft 2031 transport plan this January. A few key points from the plan include: becoming carbon neutral by 2030, eliminating road dangers in residential areas, prioritising people over cars and revitalising the city centre. To achieve these goals the plan suggests a few “BIG MOVES” to reallocate road space and transforming the city centre creating a truly safe livable city for all.
In the draft plan the city says “Too often in the city’s recent past, places have been designed for cars and not people. Redressing the balance holds the potential to create environments where people come first and where travelling around is enjoyable not intimidating”.
The draft plan echoes ideas from the early 1970’s City of Groningen Traffic Circulation Plan where it limited cars and privileged bicycles. Once on the council and local stakeholders came together, they created one of the most regarded traffic calming strategies to date. The plan was put into place in 1977, and overnight divided the city center into four parts and forbade private vehicles from crossing between the different zones. Today in the City of Groningen sees an average of 1.4 bicycle trips per person per day in the city, making up 60% of the total journeys, vs. the car which is just under 37%.
Just like Groningen of the 1970s, the City of Birmingham plans to transform the city centre by limiting traffic and not permitting through trips for private vehicles. The City wants to create a connected network of pedestrian streets with bicycle infrastructure that is integrated with public transport. The plan aims to reallocate road space away from the car and give it back to active and public transportation modes in the hopes to fit within the best practice standards. There will be prioritization of active transportation in neighbourhoods that put the needs of the local residents first. Neighbourhoods are said to set speed limits of 20mph (~32kph), letting the streets be a place where communities connect and interact.
We here at Copenhagenize think this plan is the foundation of a great traffic plan. We hope that the City of Birmingham has the political will to make these plans come into fruition.
A diagram explaining how the city in visions the traffic to flow in the Birmingham transport plan.