Birmingham City Council is due to vote on whether to close through traffic in the city centre, introducing zero-emission buses and building new cycle lanes…

Birmingham to Close to Traffic? 

The city council in Birmingham will soon vote on closing roads to through traffic; in addition to introducing zero-emission buses and rolling out more cycle lanes; all in a bid to tackle rising air pollution. The vote itself is centered around the Birmingham Transport Plan (BTP), which highlights transport investment proposals up until 2031.

As far as plans go, the BTP is fairly radical. It essentially wants to stop dedicating road space to single occupancy vehicles; and to pedestrianise large parts of the city centre. It also plans to allocate space currently used for car parks to “more productive use”. The city council itself claims that, in additional to a plethora of environmental benefits, the plans will create jobs and increase investment in the city. As it stands, around 25% of car journeys in Birmingham are one mile or shorter. 

‘Adverse Social and Environmental Impacts’

The BTP doesn’t pull any punches. It reads, “to unlock the transformational potential of transport, we need to fundamentally change the way people and goods move around the city. Without change in our approach, these opportunities and benefits will be constrained by poor air quality in our city, a lack of transport capacity and further adverse social and environmental impacts”. 

It continues, “we know that our over-dependence on private motor cars is bad for the health of ourselves and our families, bad for our communities and bad for business, and bad for the future in terms of transport’s contribution to carbon emissions, which accelerate the climate emergency”. 

Birmingham’s plans, whilst seemingly radical, aren’t novel. An increasing number of cities, particularly in Europe, are clamping down on vehicular traffic; largely due to emissions, air-quality and dangers posed to pedestrians and cyclists. For fleets, this looming reality needs to be carefully prepared for. Routes may need to be revised and drivers educated as to any financial penalties implemented by local authorities. 

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