City Centre Movement and Access strategy

Overview

As we transform the city centre into an attractive place to live, work, visit, and do business, it is essential that we free up space previously allocated to private vehicles. Reducing miles travelled by car will improve air quality and encourage greater use of active travel. We understand that the city needs to keep moving and efficient access is essential to all.

The City Centre Movement and Access strategy (CCMA), previously known as City Centre Cells/City Centre Segments, has developed through multiple versions to provide the solutions needed by all users.

Measures to provide safer facilities for active travel have already been effectively introduced over the last few years, including on Newhall Hill, Fleet Street, and Upper Dean Street. CCMA builds on this to create an intuitive go anywhere network that is safe and reliable.

As part of this strategy, we are proposing to introduce a series of measures across the city centre (the area within the A4540 ring road) over the next couple of years. These will be infrastructure and traffic management measures, such as bus gates, bollards, and turning restrictions that will be supported by new directional signage on the approach to and within the A4540 ring road.

When finalised, these interventions will complete the movement and access arrangement shown below, leading to greater use of the ring road for private vehicle trips, and a reduction of vehicle trips on local roads within the city centre.

Private vehicles will not be able to travel directly between the different areas, as shown on the plan below, but public transport and active travel modes will be able to. Private vehicles will be able to enter each area from the ring road only. This means the route to a particular destination might change slightly, but all locations will remain accessible.

Movement and access arrangement: Concept overview

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Movement and access arrangement: Traffic management cells/areas

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Proposed Measures

There are a number of proposed measures across the city centre. A summary of the proposed measures is shown in the table below.

Location	Cell/Boundary	Intervention
Great Charles Street Queensway	City Core	A bus gate (in operation 24 hours) with exemptions for cycles and taxis.
Colmore Row	City Core	A bus gate (in operation 11am - 11pm) with exemptions for cycles and taxis. Church Street will be made one-way southbound.
Hill Street, Station Street	Southside	Changes to the direction of flow, including a two-way bus only on Hill Street (between Smallbrook Queensway and Hinckley Street). A one-way section on Station Street, and pedestrian crossing improvements.
Inge Street, Hurst Street, Bromsgrove Street	Southside	A timed Pedestrian and Cycle Zone (prohibition of motor vehicles, from 7pm - 7am) with exemptions for buses and access to off-street premises.
Wrentham Street	Southside	Wrentham Street closed to all traffic except cycles (between Henstead Street and Bristol Street).
Lower Trinity Street	Eastside	One-way with a contraflow cycle lane (cyclists able to ride in both directions). A Pedestrian and Cycle Zone (prohibition of motor vehicles from 6pm - 4am)
Heath Mill Lane	Eastside	Traffic calming with raised junction tables and priority controlled chicanes
Floodgate Street	Eastside	Traffic calming with raised junction tables and priority controlled chicanes

Find out more about the specific schemes:

Great Charles Street Queensway Great Charles Street Queensway

The proposed introduction of a two-way bus gate with a U-turn facility will help to reduce the volume of private vehicles passing through this busy area of the city. A measure to restrict private vehicle traffic between Parade and Lyon Queensway will be developed.