A £4 billion vision for transport in Birmingham can be unveiled today – with a network of rapid transit buses and trams at the heart of plans.
Birmingham Connected, a 20-year vision to get the city moving, proposes massive investment to improve public transport.
Three Midland Metro tram routes and up to nine rapid sprint bus routes will be developed at a total cost of £1.2 billion, according to the white paper to be revealed by Labour leader Sir Albert Bore.
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If the plans go ahead as hoped, they would usher in a new era of public transport in Birmingham – and transform the daily commutes of hundreds of thousands of people.
One key part of the scheme is a £400 million investment to see Snow Hill railway station transformed into a major gateway to the city centre.
There is also a commitment, exclusively revealed in the Birmingham Post last week, to open up – possibly creating a new "supertunnel" under the city centre.
It also calls for further investment in rail services, including reinstatement of the Camp Hill and Sutton Park lines, and will set up "green travel zones" to encourage walking and
A series of more ambitious proposals, the tunnel plan, more metro lines, and a new rail line to the East Midlands and Nottingham, are also considered, but their delivery will depend on investment being available from government, the European Union or even businesses – via planning spin-offs or business rate uplifts.
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A key driver for transport investment will be with funds on offer to improve links to the new high-speed rail services.
Birmingham Connected has avoided the trap of other "visionary documents" with a realistic set of proposals – and an admission that some of the more ambitious projects may not get off the drawing board.
Among those deliverable schemes are the metro, with the city centre to Broad Street extension and route to Birmingham Airport already funded, and up to nine sprint rapid bus routes.
A key battle will be over which of those is delivered first with the A38 Bristol Street and the A34 Walsall Road, which was near the head of the queue. The Sprint buses will run along dedicated road lanes, separated from regular traffic by kerbs, and will be upgraded to a fully fledged tram routes if funding becomes available.
Last year a London Tube-style map of key public transport routes and their links was produced and this has been cleaned up for the final document.
Revisions from last year's draft document, the Birmingham Mobility Action Plan, will see a Sprint line linking suburban Sutton Coldfield to the city centre.
A proposed Sprint around the ring road has been downgraded to a Citylink bus service because average traffic speeds are too low to accommodate the service.
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But while the plan talks about encouraging commuters to shift from cars to public transport or bikes, there is no mention of disincentives previously suggested such as parking space taxes or congestion charging.
Council leader Sir Albert Bore said: "Birmingham Connected sets a new direction for transport, not just for tomorrow but for the next 20 years.
"It ushers in a new era in the way we think about moving people and goods from into, around and through the city and region, delivering projects and infrastructure, and the ways in which we fund them.
"Following public consultation on the Birmingham Mobility Action Plan green paper last year, the Birmingham Connected white paper now sets out our vision for a world-class transport system fitting of a world-class city."
The city council has been spurred into action after it was projected that, due to population and jobs growth, there will be four million more journeys a day in Birmingham by 2031 – a 30 per cent increase on today – and the plan aims to divert as many of those as possible from their cars into public transport, cycling or walking.
One campaign will see commuters encouraged to use the bus, train or bicycle twice a week to take up to 200,000 car journeys off the streets.
Transport operators will be urged to consider ‘whole journey fares' to enable people to jump between trains, buses, trams and possibly even taxis. Funding will also be used to cut the cost of travel for some groups, such as young job hunters.
A total of 11 local centres, including Sutton Coldfield town centre, Soho Road, Tyseley, Northfield and Longbridge, have been identified as possible green travel districts – areas where cycling and walking will be prioritised over the car.
Associate director at transport consultancy WSP Simon Statham, who spent 18 months working with the council on Birmingham Connected, said: "It's fantastic to be working on a forward thinking local project of such significance to the region.
"Birmingham Connected is a real opportunity for the city to think differently about transport and develop some really radical solutions in the future.
"There is huge potential to improve a large area of the city centre, which currently has an urban motorway running through it, by providing better connectivity and also freeing up valuable land to be put to better use."