Can Two New Stations in the West Midlands Improve Commute Time to Birmingham New St?
Significant improvements to two deprived areas for access in the West Midlands will see two new Rail Stations built in 2023. The towns of Darlaston and Willenhall (in the top 10% of deprived areas in England, 2019) will welcome two new rail stations respectively with the primary aim of improving connectivity and making journey times quicker to bigger hubs Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Walsall. These journeys will include making it easier for people to commute to work, places of interest and reducing congestion on roads on a mission to net zero targets. These changes should hopefully help improve their scoring when it comes to the indices of deprivation.
Source: Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), 2019.
Darlaston & Willenhall in Pictures
Background and Current Map
The West Midlands Rail Authority (WMRA) have published that 1 train will be served in each direction between Walsall and Wolverhampton and Wolverhampton to Birmingham. Using TRACC we can see what improved access looks like to Birmingham New Street station using Coloured contours as a metric. We added the two new stations in the Walsall Chase Line to Birmingham New Street and both stations are due to sit between Walsall and Bescot Stadium according to WMRA.
How does two new stations impact the area?
Here you can see the gap in the current landscape, it takes around 50-60 minute on average using public transport to reach Birmingham New Street (BNS) from large parts of Darlaston and Willenhall appears to not feature within an hour to get to BNS.
Now, with the two stations added, access improves markedly with Willenhall and Darlaston within 20-40 minutes to Birmingham New St instead of around one hour. This confirms WMRA’s targets.
The estimated journey times to Birmingham New Street are
25 minutes from Willenhall, saving 46 minutes 22 minutes from Darlaston, saving 53 minutes
The estimated journey times to Wolverhampton are
8 minutes from Willenhall, saving 10 minutes 11 minutes from Darlaston, saving 17 minutes
The estimated journey times to Walsall are
8 minutes from Willenhall, saving 10 minutes 14 minutes from Darlaston, saving 9 minutes
Use TRACC to show what access would look like in your area, reach out to our team and we would be delighted to support your projects.
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