Focus of work
ConnectedCities’ vision is for compact, high quality, walkable developments focused around existing and new railway stations. Groups of settlements – some existing, some new – are linked using existing railways and clustered around a “hub town”. Together they form a ConnectedCity. Central to the ConnectedCity concept is “Metroisation”, which involves using existing railways to provide a metro standard of service in locations currently underserved.
In 2020, FIT funded ConnectedCities to run two free online case study seminars on the metroisation of railways in Bristol and Rochdale. For each event, the ConnectedCity team:
- conducted a study of the existing transport and town planning proposals in the area
- prepared a map showing potential ConnectedCities and their growth areas around stations
- analysed the potential housing capacity for each of these “pedsheds” (pedestrian shed, walkable area from a town centre)
- organised, promoted and ran the event
- disseminated outcomes
- published a follow-up case study and analysis report.
Impact
The Rochdale Rail Corridor event took place on 23 July 2020, and the MetroWest Bristol event took place on 12 August 2020.
Since then, the MetroWest rail development project has launched, which aims to transform rail services in Bristol and the surrounding West of England region. There has also been £800m allocated by the government to local transport in the region. These developments were supported by the hard work publicised by the FIT-funded webinars.
Brian Q Love, who led the project, said: “It took four years, but what is happening now with MetroWest and the £800 million allocated by the government to local transport in the Bristol area is part of outcome of many people’s hard work that we helped publicise with the webinars.”