The city council of Birmingham has published a draft of its transport plan which reveals that it intends to restrict cars from making journeys through the city and that it will install its ‘clean air zone’ in July this year.
The plan also includes pedestrianising certain areas of the city centre, adding public transport services, reducing the number of parking spaces and instating 20mph speed limits on residential streets.
The headline announcement is that the Midlands city wants to discourage the use of private cars in the centre through the use of a circulation plan. This means private cars cannot drive from one end of the city to another, but are instead directed onto the A38 and ring roads.
To compensate, Birmingham intends to expand the metro network, re-open services on railway lines and increase the number of ‘rapid transit’ buses.
The city had previously announced the introduction of a ‘CAZ’ clean air zone on 1 July 2020, which means that drivers of pre-Euro 4 petrols and pre-Euro 6 diesels will have to pay a fee to enter the city inside the A4540 Middleway ring road. The revenue from this fee will fund improvements of public transport and transport infrastructure.
The council also plans to free up land that is currently used for parking and put it to use for housing and employment. By varying parking cost and public transport fares, the council will try to control the amount of traffic entering the city.
There will be a consultation phase from 28 January to 27 March, after which it will be decided whether the plan gains approval.
