Opinion: New look Broad Street doesn’t look too “bus-friendly”?

Having caught a brief glimpse of Broad Street a few weeks ago from the top deck of the 12, I decided to go back today to have a good look round.

I started off at what will be the new terminus on Hagley Road.

Still looks some way off being finished at this point, but looks like just the paving to be laid down and the shelter installed. Those street lights will have to go though if the line does get extended further!

From there, I walked back along Hagley Road, under Five Ways, and up onto Broad Street.

From here, this is where I started to get a little concerned about whether buses would ever fully return to Broad Street.

It’s been so long since I last walked down Broad Street I’ve almost forgotten what it was like, but it looks to me like the road has been narrowed to single carriageway with one lane in each direction.

I can’t remember what the final plans for Broad Street were, but it looks to me like having all the Harborne and Hagley Road bus services along this road, alongside the trams, as well as other through traffic, is just going to end up a nightmare, especially if the trams travel as slowly as they do along Bull Street and Corporation Street now.

My first impression was “surely they can’t expect buses to operate reliably with this road design?” I also noted that while tram stop shelters had been installed, there was no sign of any bus stop poles or shelters. Were buses ever going to return to Broad Street?

Well that answered my question, yes, buses will be using Broad Street again at some point it would appear. But reliably?

Those with long memories will recall that bus services used to get diverted away from Broad Street on Friday and Saturday evenings, due to increased traffic levels (and the odd occasional brawl that spilled out into the street).

Unless Broad Street is going to be restricted to buses, taxis and trams only, this road is just going to end up congested, especially if you have convoys of buses stuck behind trams and unable to overtake them.

Of course, I might be completely wrong about all of this, and it could all work beautifully, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how things pan out.

What do you think? Are you looking forward to getting the bus to Broad Street again? Will you use the Metro tram instead? Concerned about impact on reliability of Harborne (23, 24) and Hagley Road (9, 12/A, 13/A, 126, X8, X10) services? Feel free to comment below!