Liverpool City Council Announce Next Steps In Upgrading Lime Street
Why are the flyovers being taken down?
In both 2016 and 2019 specialist engineers declared the flyovers unsafe for traffic. Ways to strengthen the flyovers were explored but could not be used due to the way they were originally built. The cost of replacing the flyovers is estimated between £50m and £60m. It will cost £6.75m to take them down and this is considered the safest and most economical option.Liverpool City Council has revealed new details of the next phase of its £47m Liverpool City Centre Connectivity scheme.Following the removal of the Churchill Way flyovers and the planning approval for the Old Haymarket bus hub the city council has announced next steps in upgrading Lime Street.After public feedback and a reappraisal the council is re-introducing a segregated cycle lane on Lime Street, which will also gain a new public square outside the train station and an expanded plateau outside the Grade I listed St George’s Hall.
Bus hub
The bus hub on Old Haymarket will begin to come into use in January before becoming fully operational later in 2020. Its function will see Queen Square bus station became the focus for northbound bus routes and Liverpool One bus station for southbound bus routes, which will be underpinned by the Lime Street redesign.The council claims the new hub and re-routed bus services will save more than 900,000 bus km and 2,000 tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere every year. The Lime Street designs also include the installation of a water feature at the southern end of the plateau, which lies within the city’s World Heritage site.The Lime Street revamp will also see a widened, boulevard style pavement running the entire length up to the Adelphi Hotel, which sits within the newly branded Upper Central gateway to the city’s Knowledge Quarter.
Single carriageway
To begin in May 2020, Lime Street will be reduced into a single carriageway in each direction, with the southbound lane able to access St Johns Shopping centre car park. South of Lime Street station will be a single lane only, with northbound traffic, including buses, no longer able to travel past the old ABC Cinema and Holiday Inn hotel and will instead need to take a left or right at the Adelphi Hotel junction.Bus users are being advised that due to the timings of these works that changes to routes through Liverpool city centre will now come into effect later next year, rather than in January as originally planned. Once agreed, the revised date for route changes will be made available.As a result of further traffic modelling and surveys, the city council has also agreed in principle with the city’s bus alliance that the 82 bus service from South Liverpool will be able to continue to use Hanover Street.This decision is subject to the introduction of new bus priority measures such as bus gate or dedicated bus lane, which is currently being mapped out.
Better Roads
The scheme has secured £40.1m from the Local Growth Fund with local match funding of £7m and is a major part of Liverpool City Council’s £500m Better Roads programme. Local Growth Funding is awarded to the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and invested through the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority through its Strategic Investment Fund.