Green-led Brighton and Hove City Council has won a national transport award for the recent Lewes Road improvement scheme, beating 87 other entrants.
The Smarter Travel Awards and Brighton & Hove won the ‘most improved journey to work” for improvements to Lewes Road.
The city council won further praise by being shortlisted for the JourneyOn travel planning website www.journeyon.co.uk in the ‘best smarter travel app’ category.
Lewes Road saw 4.5km of existing dual carriageway between the Vogue Gyratory and Falmer converted into a single carriageway for general traffic, next to a dedicated bus lane with a widened cycle lane.
The council added pedestrian and cycle crossing facilities at various locations along the route.
Numbers of daily cyclists have increased to 14%, while the number of bus passengers has seen an increase of 7%. Traffic has reduced by 13%.
Councillor Ian Davey, lead member for transport at Brighton & Hove City Council, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to win this national award in recognition of the improvements to Lewes Road.
“One of the main aims of the scheme is to make sustainable forms of transport a more attractive and practical option for those concerned.
“It shows where Greens commit resources to transport we see benefits for the whole community.”
The award comes only five months after Brighton & Hove was named European ‘City of the Year’ by Civitas for policies to promote clean transport and shortlisted for the National Transport Awards ‘Transport Authority of the Year.’
In October it was highly commended for the Lewes Road and the Seven Dials improvement schemes.
In November Lewes Road got the Bronze award at the UK Bus Awards 2014 for Local Authority Bus Project of the Year.