In October 2019, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM), in partnership with Birmingham City Council, consulted on proposals to improve bus journeys by introducing new bus lanes and making improvements to existing bus lanes on Highgate Middleway, Moseley Road and Alcester Road, particularly through Balsall Heath.
We received 862 responses to the consultation with 71% broadly supportive of the proposals for the bus priority measures.
Following the public consultation, a review of the scheme was initiated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. TfWM and Birmingham City Council are working together to review the impact on potential reduced space for pedestrians through parts of the scheme, to ensure support for bus improvements and people who make journeys by bus. Following this review, which is expected to be completed in 2020, we will write to you again with further details on the scheme.
Please contact customerservices@tfwm.org.uk with any questions.
Birmingham is on a journey to cleaner air. In 2020, a Clean Air Zone will be introduced in the city centre (within the A4540 Middleway ring road), improving air quality and meaning more people, especially children, live healthier lives.
Buses have huge part to play in helping the city be Clean Air Zone ready. Transport for West Midlands and Birmingham City Council are working together to improve the bus network in Birmingham, helping to make bus travel more attractive by reducing journey times, improving reliability and making bus travel safer. More people travelling by bus means less congestion and better air quality for everybody.
The A435 Alcester Road is used by nearly 7 million bus passengers every year – more than any other road in the West Midlands. In the morning rush hours, more people travel by bus on the Alcester Road to the city centre than travel by car. The route is, however, one of the most congested corridors into and out of the city, particularly through Balsall Heath.
We want to speed up bus journeys by introducing new bus lanes and making improvements to existing bus lanes on Highgate Middleway, Moseley Road and Alcester Road, particularly through Balsall Heath.
Most of the bus lanes would be part time. This means that on-street parking will remain available through Balsall Heath during the day, but buses will have priority when the traffic is busiest. We also propose to build a new bus only road along Highgate Middleway so buses can bypass any queuing and delay during afternoon rush hour periods.
As part of the scheme we will ensure regular enforcement of the parking restrictions. We will also monitor the bus lane and consider introducing camera enforcement if vehicles are regularly being driven in the lanes during operational hours.
The links below will describe the changes and display maps of those sections. A full set of maps can also be downloaded as a single PDF.
You can also download Computer generated pictures of what the proposed scheme might look like.
To allow for operation of the bus lanes, parking restrictions will be changed to the following:
Between the junctions of Cromer Road/Brighton Road to Moseley Road, it will be necessary to widen the carriageway meaning the footways on both sides of the road will need to be reduced. To compensate for this, we propose to bring forward a range of improvements through Balsall Heath to improve the environment for pedestrians, including new footway surfacing, extensive de-cluttering of street furniture, new trees, better crossing facilities and new bus stops. We believe this will deliver a significant improvement to Balsall Heath for the local community, supporting the objectives of the Balsall Heath Neighborhood Plan - but we want the community to help us shape these environmental improvements further.
See larger versions of the plans and chat with members of the project team at Chamberlain Health & Fitness Centre, 1 Belgrave Road, B12 9FF.
See larger versions of the plans and chat with members of the project team at Balsall Heath Library, 497 Moseley Road, B12 9BX.
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