Gosforth High Street transport improvements

New measures to improve public transport are to be installed on Gosforth High Street.

Bus lane provision will be extended to improve bus reliability and journey times on this key public transport route. This would see the northbound bus lane extended to provide an almost continuous bus provision running from Blue House Roundabout in the south to the Church Road/Salters Road junction in the north. At the same time, the bollards will also be removed.

The plans are part of a phased approach to the High Street which would see bus priority measures installed later this month using an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order (ETRO), with a second phase looking at the longer-term options for the high street.

Using an ETRO, we will make the bus priority changes from 20 March 2023. Public consultation would take place for the first six months of the scheme being implemented. This would allow us to trial the scheme and gauge public feedback, ahead of making a long-term decision on elements of detailed design.  Go here for the public consultation which runs from 20 March until 21 September.

Journey time data, which has been collected over four years, show that there has been minimal impact on the travelling public with the traffic reduced to two lanes through the High Street. Southbound journey times have improved on the am peak, with no change on the pm peak. Northbound journey times haven’t been affected on the am peak, with a small increase on average times during the pm peak.

The proposals put forward support our commitment to improve public transport across the city and working with bus operators, we are also looking at improving bus stop locations and bus infrastructure to improve accessibility and bus journey times.

In addition to the ETRO proposals, the public event held on 9 March was also used to seek feedback on the wider issues in Gosforth and present some proposals for discussion in relation to development of wider improvements for all road users, but specifically people on foot and bike. These will form part of the next phase of works.