Congestion on roads across the West Midlands is getting worse as frustrated railway passengers abandon trains and are forced into their cars, says Labour’s candidate for West Midlands Mayor Liam Byrne MP.

As new figures this week revealed the number of cancelled trains on West Midlands Railway doubled in February to an astonishing 1,070, it has emerged that the average delay on locally managed ‘A’ roads in the West Midlands has increased by 8.5%

Mr Byrne claims the Tory Mayor promised to “bust congestion” when he was elected in 2017, but these figures show journeys across the Metro region are getting worse at a rate almost three times worse than the national average. He has broken that promise and failed to get on top of the problem.

In the Metro Mayoral area, the average delay (as officially measured by the average delay per vehicle per mile) rose from a base line in 2016 of 65.5 seconds per mile to 71.1. That’s an increase of 8.54% An increase of 8.54% compares to a national increase of 3.05%. In 2018 the average delay in England was 47.3 seconds per mile whereas in the metro area it was 71.1, over a third longer. Labour’s candidate for West Midlands Mayor, Liam Byrne MP, said:

“The Tory Mayor’s failure to get a grip of our railways is now creating gridlock.

“This fresh evidence shows his green light to West Midlands Railway to carry on failing means drivers sitting in jams, lost wages and ever more toxic air.

“We can do better than this. And if we want to lead Britain's zero carbon revolution then we're going to need trains that run on time.

“What we just can't have is a Tory Mayor who acts like a bystander while the West Midlands grinds to a halt.”