Specifically, these interventions were:
- Park and Ride: Strategic plan to reduce traffic in the City centre by creating a new bus route.
City Connect West Bradford: The Leeds to Bradford Cycle Superhighway and Bradford Canal Road Cycleway.
- Autonomous Pod – Way: The new public transport corridor using driverless electric pods to carry passengers and running
between fixed raised guiding tracks.
- Active Sustainable Travel Scheme: Aligned with the ‘Walking, Cycle and Public Realm’ national policy, general proposals to
facilitate pedestrian movements between public transport facilities through appropriate design, location and access.
- Bradford Interchange: With four connecting parts to the Interchange, its redevelopment plays an important part in supporting the
business case by creating a high quality gateway to the City, connecting transport modes of bus, rail, pedestrian and cycle and supporting City led economic growth and the strategic aims of local policy such as ‘Supporting Sustainable Economic Growth’.
The interventions include new areas of pedestrianisation, helps to remove traffic from the City centre and combined with some proposed demolition works, establishes new intuitive sight lines and places for people. They follow recognised design standards such as the DfT’s ‘Manuals for Streets’ and crucially focused on putting people first rather than the car. They also create the framework for the new public transport corridor and guided bus route which would be on new raised guided tracks and part existing standard highway and together forming a dedicated new mass transit transport route. Stops, landscape and public realm would then frame and identify the new route and interfaces and junctions formed with other transport modes. The passenger pods themselves were similar in scale to a minibus and based on a standard frame of 4m long and 1.9m wide which can transport 15 passengers and have in built electric ramps for less able bodied persons. With an operating battery life of up to 16 hours and a recharging time of 6 hours these bi directional pods with a turning circle of just 5m are ideal for urban applications and have little or no impact on existing and historic infrastructure.
Identified as an Urban Growth Centre, the outcome of the feasibility study was the successful completion and submission of the project business case for funding through the Transforming Cities Fund. Our work saw us and our partners involved in design development of the routewide transport plan and with particular focus on the guided bus route, its alignment, how it weaved its way through parts of the City, the interfaces with other transportation modes, the public realm and landscape that helped define the route, early thoughts on materials, wayfinding and ,ighting and of course the electric pods themselves which require low grade but specific infrastructure to operate and hence why we had to understand their full operational requirements. This process involved pedestrian modelling, financial appraisals, timetabling, multi disciplinary engineering, value for money (BCR) and economic vale added (EVA) reporting, identifying and accessing funding streams and producing visual and written information to support effective well reasoned applications. Perhaps the key outcome of our work was that through designing the transport corridor and developing better integration between buses, trains, taxis, cycles and pedestrians with the potential for economic growth that all this provided, the Clients key objectives were delivered, namely:
- Creating open green spaces and improving connectivity.
- Providing more access to public facilities.
- Improving attractiveness of the City.
- Aligning with other City initiatives such as improved air quality and cleaner growth.
- Increasing retail opportunities, boosting productivity across the City and increasing tourism.
- Reducing traffic flow through the City.
The combined effect of our work and which we hope to develop further over the next project stages will create the framework for a more comfortable, accessible and welcoming environment and enhance the existing transport infrastructure which will deliver better spaces for people as well as meeting the needs of business, all of which is entirely consistent with the principles of ‘Quality Places’.