Issue - meetings

The BBSC (Bristol to Bath Strategic Corridor) seeks to improve travel between Bath and Bristol through better bus services, improvements to bus infrastructure, and develop facilities to enable more cycling and walking services and along the A4 route, as well as to the A4 route from neighbouring communities.

We want to provide better and more sustainable transport to help people move around more easily, reduce congestion, lower carbon emissions and improve the environment we live in.

The Strategic Outline Case (SOC) establishes the potential scope of the transport proposal. This sets out the rationale for intervention (the case for change) and confirms how the investment will further our priorities and wider government ambitions (the strategic fit) to determine the ‘preferred way forward’.

On a motion from Councillor Sarah Warren, seconded by Councillor Manda Rigby, it was

RESOLVED (unanimously) that the Cabinet agreed to:

1.  Note that WECA Joint Committee on 28^th January 2022 will be asked to delegate authority to approve the Strategic Outline Case to Chief Executives on 17^th February 2022 for progression to Outline Business Case.

2.  Note early public engagement will be carried out Spring/Summer 2022 if the Strategic Outline Case is approved.

The BBSC (Bristol to Bath Strategic Corridor) seeks to improve travel between Bath and Bristol through better bus services, improvements to bus infrastructure, and develop facilities to enable more cycling and walking services and along the A4 route, as well as to the A4 route from neighbouring communities.

We want to provide better and more sustainable transport to help people move around more easily, reduce congestion, lower carbon emissions and improve the environment we live in.

The Strategic Outline Case (SOC) establishes the potential scope of the transport proposal. This sets out the rationale for intervention (the case for change) and confirms how the investment will further our priorities and wider government ambitions (the strategic fit) to determine the ‘preferred way forward’.

Councillor Sarah Warren introduced the report and made the following statement:

“The A4 Bristol Bath corridor serves a population of 117,000 with around 13,000 trips made along the corridor each day. At the moment, the mode share of these made by car is 54%, increasing to a whopping 77% of commuters to Bristol or Bath along the route, with just 7% of all trips by bike, and 9% by bus. Population along the corridor is forecast to increase, and if nothing is done, mode share by car is forecast to rise still further, with the greatest increase arising from trips of less than 5km. Corresponding congestion costs are forecast to increase to £800m per year by 2036.

At present, there is very limited bus priority, and very little safe, segregated cycle provision on the route, which results in a vicious cycle. Buses stuck in traffic travel slowly with unpredictable journey times, cycling amongst the traffic feels too dangerous for many, there are few methods to get to the A4 that don’t involve a car. Whilst there is a fast rail connection, it can only be accessed at Keynsham. So, people are understandably very much in the habit of picking up their car keys.

The impacts of this car-dominated environment are many. The route currently suffers from severe congestion, with associated financial cost of wasted time and fuel, increased car mileage as people divert around it, air pollution, noise, and car-dominated communities that don’t always feel like the pleasantest of environments to walk around. As part of our climate emergency declaration, we know we need to achieve a reduction in mileage of 25% per person per year, and this is a vital transition to make for public health reasons as well. So, we need to make the shift from a vicious to a virtuous cycle.

The overarching objective of this project, funded through the West of England Combined Authority’s City Region Sustainable Transport Fund, is to create a high quality segregated and prioritised mass transport, cycling and walking corridor that will provide for reliable services, to encourage people to use sustainable transport modes for short and mid-distance journeys, and contribute to tackling the climate emergency through modal shift. We also plan to improve sustainable modes of getting to the A4, with interchanges between transport modes along the route. Our underlying purpose is to improve people’s lives through addressing the climate emergency, improving public health, and tackling transport poverty.

Our aspiration is for a fast, segregated zero-emission, turn-up-and-go, 5-minute bus service between Bristol and Bath, as well as a continuous, safe, segregated cycle route.  This will create a vital step-change in the standard of sustainable transport connections between the two major cities of the West of England. A first round of public engagement was carried out this autumn, so we already have information about residents’ views. Further engagement will take place in early 2022.

We welcome government’s commitment to sustainable transport through the provision of the City Region Sustainable Transport Fund, and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 107