Birmingham City Council will pilot its first multi-occupancy vehicle lanes later this year in a bid to tackle rising congestion. The announcement was made by transport cabinet member, Cllr Len Gregory, at this week’s transport summit in the city. Gregory explained that the council was looking at a number of projects to cut traffic congestion around Birmingham, which would include ‘additional capacity on our roads and more multi-occupancy vehicle lanes, bus lanes and freight-only lanes’. He said: ‘Later this year, we will start piloting the high-occupancy vehicle lanes.’ The idea of turning a suspended bus lane in Tyburn Road into a multi-occupancy vehicle lane was mooted by Gregory last year. But because of the safety implications of a route with a large number of bus stops, the plan was discounted on safety grounds, because cars would start lane-hopping to get round buses picking up and dropping off passengers (Surveyor, 16 February). Gregory has also suggested allowing HGVs into bus lanes in a scheme similar to Newcastle’s ‘no car’ lanes. This could be achieved without ‘unreasonably disadvantaging’ buses, because there were only around 20 buses an hour. Gregory also laid out the council’s plans for improving transport and gave an insight into what the West Midlands conurbation local transport plan – due to be published at the end of this month – would contain. He wants to see more investment in heavy rail, and restoring services to the city’s redundant rail lines, mainly in the south of Birmingham. Gregory is also putting his faith in delivering light rail, despite rising costs of its proposed two-line Midland Metro expansion, which have leapt to £369M – a 74% increase on the spring 2002 estimate. He referred to delayed projects in Edinburgh and London – where two of the handful of the country’s remaining tram projects were still being progressed – as he staked a claim to government investment in England’s second city. ‘We do not have a Scottish Parliament or a Wembley Stadium in Birmingham,’ he said. ‘We will have a Metro system first time – and on time.’