Worcestershire Parkway station progress

Pigeon · 28 Oct 2018

"Large open space in front of the station" = knocking down the Kay's office block, and about time too. Shrub Hill's frontage would really be rather impressive without that thing in the way.

Office development between Shrub Hill and the city centre? I don't see where that would go. The land is all in active use already. What I have heard of in that line is proposed for round the other side of the station - using the large area of land which used to be the goods yard and various long-vanished sheds. Not a good idea; if that land is to be used for anything it should be to provide car parking space for Shrub Hill - there is no need to make out that Shrub Hill parking is a difficult problem to solve. The problem in that area that is difficult to solve is the single-lane underbridge at the south end of the station which creates a bottleneck at the bottom of Newtown Road; this really needs rebuilding to allow bidirectional traffic, but I can't see that ever happening. But it could be mitigated somewhat at least as far as car access to the station is concerned by making the goods-yard car park with access via Tolladine Road.

Where Worcester's rail services really have a hole is in heading southwards towards Cheltenham and Bristol. Birmingham, Hereford and Oxford directions are all well-served, but Bristol direction is lacking (although not quite as bad as it used to be). And the best, indeed the only real, way to fill this hole is by running services via the Worcester-Droitwich loop instead of the direct route. Regardless of any objections, if they are to serve Worcester there is no possible alternative.

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deltic08 · 28 Oct 2018

MarkyT said:
I'd have thought that, if extended at all, the local electric service would be best routed through Droitwich Spa and central Worcester rather than the main line. It might then access Worcestershire Parkway via Shrub Hill and a high level turnback at the new Parkway. Probably better to extend Kidderminster line trains to that turnback at Parkway though.

Shorter and quicker than via Droitwich. Besides, it is easier than fighting your way into central Wotcester if you live to the east.

jayah · 28 Oct 2018

Pigeon said:
"Large open space in front of the station" = knocking down the Kay's office block, and about time too. Shrub Hill's frontage would really be rather impressive without that thing in the way.

Office development between Shrub Hill and the city centre? I don't see where that would go. The land is all in active use already. What I have heard of in that line is proposed for round the other side of the station - using the large area of land which used to be the goods yard and various long-vanished sheds. Not a good idea; if that land is to be used for anything it should be to provide car parking space for Shrub Hill - there is no need to make out that Shrub Hill parking is a difficult problem to solve. The problem in that area that is difficult to solve is the single-lane underbridge at the south end of the station which creates a bottleneck at the bottom of Newtown Road; this really needs rebuilding to allow bidirectional traffic, but I can't see that ever happening. But it could be mitigated somewhat at least as far as car access to the station is concerned by making the goods-yard car park with access via Tolladine Road.

Where Worcester's rail services really have a hole is in heading southwards towards Cheltenham and Bristol. Birmingham, Hereford and Oxford directions are all well-served, but Bristol direction is lacking (although not quite as bad as it used to be). And the best, indeed the only real, way to fill this hole is by running services via the Worcester-Droitwich loop instead of the direct route. Regardless of any objections, if they are to serve Worcester there is no possible alternative.

Most of Shrub Hill looks to be light industrial which is why a fairly radical redevelopment would not be that difficult.

After the new station there will still be a hole in the Worcester to Bristol service as the new station isn't in Worcester.

Meanwhile instead of doing something radical at Shrub Hill or taking the opportunity to load their mandated new housing build around the new station, the council seem determined to tarmac every green field around Worcester to the south and west with houses, leaving more isolated, unsustainable housing detached from all public transport networks, totally dependent on the private car. The BBC did a story only this week about these isolated new build suburbs.

takno · 29 Oct 2018

geoffk said:
Will be interesting to see if GWR continues to call at Shrub Hill as well as Parkway. I thought that the part of the original funding of Parkway would come from closing Shrub Hill and redeveloping the site. but that's obviously not the plan and could Foregate Street cope with more trains terminating.

I don't think there's ever been a serious plan to close Shrub Hill, and it certainly wasn't part of the funding plans for Parkway. They serve completely different market segments anyway; Shrub Hill meets the needs of people from the city who want to go to Birmingham, while Parkway is there for people who want to park their car in the middle of the countryside and watch trains go past.

Pigeon · 29 Oct 2018

Closing Shrub Hill was definitely mentioned in the local press as something which went along with the opening of Stoulton Road, on numerous occasions. Sufficiently often that the refutation is something of a relief. Much of my objection to Stoulton Road was down to the prospect of losing Shrub Hill.

jayah said:
After the new station there will still be a hole in the Worcester to Bristol service as the new station isn't in Worcester.

Exactly.

jimm · 29 Oct 2018

jayah said:
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse.

The business case footfall is 367 return trips per day. The projected model share is 70% car (park) 25% car (drop off) and 1% taxi.

I cannot get excited about something that is the absolute definition of dis-integrated un-sustainable transport as it is possible to be.

There are problems with access at Shrub Hill - fix them. This expensive station is really not the answer to any transport or development problem.

How to make a bad situation worse? Build a lot of unsustainable office space next door! Where are the shops and supporting services? How will all these office workers get to work? By car mostly, especially if they are really proposing a ribbon development heading toward the city centre, much of it not accessible by rail from any of the 3 stations.

The only way to do it properly would be a completely new Garden City concentrated on the station site, but I bet that isn't on the agenda.

Before coming out with naive, simplistic stuff like 'fix them', I'd suggest you familiarise yourself with the geography and topography of Worcester. There isn't any space to start building nice wide new roads to and through the central area, or more road bridges over the river. If someone could 'fix' access to Shrub Hill they would have done it a long time ago.

How is a development surrounding a railway station not accessible by rail?

And there are plenty of problems with Shrub Hill station itself, but this thread is not the place for that discussion.

jayah said:
After the new station there will still be a hole in the Worcester to Bristol service as the new station isn't in Worcester.

Which is not the fault of the new station, is it? Since privatisation, successive TOCs gradually removed the services, notably on the Cardiff route, that Regional Railways had routed via Shrub Hill and sent them down the avoiding line instead.

Pigeon said:
Closing Shrub Hill was definitely mentioned in the local press as something which went along with the opening of Stoulton Road, on numerous occasions. Sufficiently often that the refutation is something of a relief. Much of my objection to Stoulton Road was down to the prospect of losing Shrub Hill.

It was often mentioned in letters or comments on articles, but there was never any plan to close Shrub Hill except in the minds of those making the comments. And the new station has a name, whether you like or not.

The city council's masterplan consultation brochure can be seen here.

https://www.worcester.gov.uk/docume...inal.pdf/02c7b1f5-b9f0-f718-a9c7-68fed16dfa62

HowardGWR · 29 Oct 2018

jimm said:
And the new station has a name, whether you like or not.

I rather like it. The GWR would have called it 'Worcester Road'.

Edit:
Perhaps BPW should be renamed 'South Gloucestershire Parkway'?

deltic08 · 29 Oct 2018

HowardGWR said:
I rather like it. The GWR would have called it 'Worcester Road'.

Edit:
Perhaps BPW should be renamed 'South Gloucestershire Parkway'?

Yes, considering how far it is from Bristol.

takno · 29 Oct 2018

HowardGWR said:
I rather like it. The GWR would have called it 'Worcester Road'.

Edit:
Perhaps BPW should be renamed 'South Gloucestershire Parkway'?

Given that it's mostly the station for people from outside Worcester to try to get to Birmingham, East Worcestershire Parkway is probably safest.

jimm · 29 Oct 2018

takno said:
Given that it's mostly the station for people from outside Worcester to try to get to Birmingham, East Worcestershire Parkway is probably safest.

I think you'll find a great many people wanting to head in the direction of Oxford, Reading and London will be using the Parkway - probably far more than will hope to wedge themselves into an overloaded XC Class 170 to get to Brum.

Meerkat · 29 Oct 2018

If they sort the layout and signalling isn’t the obvious place for a new station (and turnback) to the West of Worcester by the bypass? cuts out driving into or around the City for those to the West and doesn’t extend journey times. Could also be park and ride into centre if al services stop there

adrock1976 · 29 Oct 2018

HowardGWR said:
I rather like it. The GWR would have called it 'Worcester Road'.

Edit:
Perhaps BPW should be renamed 'South Gloucestershire Parkway'?

deltic08 said:
Yes, considering how far it is from Bristol.

Slightly off topic, but was Bristol Parkway originally called Stoke Gifford while it was being constructed?

Perhaps being as the Parkway is firmly established, a slight modification could be to add after Bristol Parkway "for Stoke Gifford" underneath the signs? When I recently purchased a Plusbus from Parkway, the till receipt stated at the top the location being Stoke Gifford.

Llanigraham · 29 Oct 2018

Meerkat said:
If they sort the layout and signalling isn’t the obvious place for a new station (and turnback) to the West of Worcester by the bypass? cuts out driving into or around the City for those to the West and doesn’t extend journey times. Could also be park and ride into centre if al services stop there

Considering that the largest centres of population of Worcester are to the EAST of the river, that would mean they would have to use one of the two bridges to cross the river, and those cause the biggest bottlenecks.
(I lived in Worcester for more than 20 years!)

jayah · 29 Oct 2018

jimm said:
Before coming out with naive, simplistic stuff like 'fix them', I'd suggest you familiarise yourself with the geography and topography of Worcester. There isn't any space to start building nice wide new roads to and through the central area, or more road bridges over the river. If someone could 'fix' access to Shrub Hill they would have done it a long time ago.

How is a development surrounding a railway station not accessible by rail?

And there are plenty of problems with Shrub Hill station itself, but this thread is not the place for that discussion.

Which is not the fault of the new station, is it? Since privatisation, successive TOCs gradually removed the services, notably on the Cardiff route, that Regional Railways had routed via Shrub Hill and sent them down the avoiding line instead.

It was often mentioned in letters or comments on articles, but there was never any plan to close Shrub Hill except in the minds of those making the comments. And the new station has a name, whether you like or not.

The city council's masterplan consultation brochure can be seen here.

https://www.worcester.gov.uk/docume...inal.pdf/02c7b1f5-b9f0-f718-a9c7-68fed16dfa62

Impossible is a big word.

Much of the land between the A38 and Shrub Hill is already zoned for redevelopment and is warehouses / light industrial.

Costly yes, impossible no. I don't subscribe to any assertions that if something were possible it would already have been done.

The projections are such that even after Parkway, Shrub Hill will have more passengers, so it still needs doing.

The current countywide development plans are for lots of outer suburban sprawl between Shrub Hill and Parkway and across to the West, but near neither station and nothing around Parkway station.

If the thing is being built they should at least work their planning around it and put a sustainable settlement around Parkway with homes, shops, jobs and offices.

jimm · 30 Oct 2018

jayah said:
Impossible is a big word.

Much of the land between the A38 and Shrub Hill is already zoned for redevelopment and is warehouses / light industrial.

Costly yes, impossible no. I don't subscribe to any assertions that if something were possible it would already have been done.

The projections are such that even after Parkway, Shrub Hill will have more passengers, so it still needs doing.

The current countywide development plans are for lots of outer suburban sprawl between Shrub Hill and Parkway and across to the West, but near neither station and nothing around Parkway station.

If the thing is being built they should at least work their planning around it and put a sustainable settlement around Parkway with homes, shops, jobs and offices.

I've no idea what any of this has to do with the basics of where Shrub Hill is located in the first place, the, yes, impossibility of widening arterial roads throughout the city (unless you plan a huge demolition programme to make room for that), the single central bridge across the river, the medieval street pattern in the centre, etc. You can tinker around in a few places but the fundamentals are not going to change - it will remain a difficult place to get to from much of Worcester, unlike a station close to the bypass where people can get out and go around the city to reach it.

And before anyone goes on about car use, please remember that there are a number of people in the Worcester area who drive all the way to Warwick Parkway to get a train to London for a variety of reasons, including the lack of parking at the city's existing stations.

Given that the key rail travel flow from Worcester is to Birmingham, it isn't exactly a revelation that passenger numbers at the central stations are likely to be higher in the long run when those are the stations that will continue to be best able to serve that flow in the peaks - though what actual footfall is at Shrub Hill and Foregate Street is hard to pin down anyway given the often large fluctuations between the two each year as the ORR tries to allocate Worcester Stations journeys but still doesn't seem to have found an ideal formula to use. The proposed installation of ticket barriers may finally get us closer to an answer.

B&I · 30 Oct 2018

jayah said:
Impossible is a big word.

Much of the land between the A38 and Shrub Hill is already zoned for redevelopment and is warehouses / light industrial.

Costly yes, impossible no. I don't subscribe to any assertions that if something were possible it would already have been done.

The projections are such that even after Parkway, Shrub Hill will have more passengers, so it still needs doing.

The current countywide development plans are for lots of outer suburban sprawl between Shrub Hill and Parkway and across to the West, but near neither station and nothing around Parkway station.

If the thing is being built they should at least work their planning around it and put a sustainable settlement around Parkway with homes, shops, jobs and offices.

Any form of sustainability seems to be out of fashion with our current planning policies, at least when it comes to encouraging modes of transport other than private cars

jayah · 30 Oct 2018

jimm said:
I've no idea what any of this has to do with the basics of where Shrub Hill is located in the first place, the, yes, impossibility of widening arterial roads throughout the city (unless you plan a huge demolition programme to make room for that), the single central bridge across the river, the medieval street pattern in the centre, etc. You can tinker around in a few places but the fundamentals are not going to change - it will remain a difficult place to get to from much of Worcester, unlike a station close to the bypass where people can get out and go around the city to reach it.

And before anyone goes on about car use, please remember that there are a number of people in the Worcester area who drive all the way to Warwick Parkway to get a train to London for a variety of reasons, including the lack of parking at the city's existing stations.

Given that the key rail travel flow from Worcester is to Birmingham, it isn't exactly a revelation that passenger numbers at the central stations are likely to be higher in the long run when those are the stations that will continue to be best able to serve that flow in the peaks - though what actual footfall is at Shrub Hill and Foregate Street is hard to pin down anyway given the often large fluctuations between the two each year as the ORR tries to allocate Worcester Stations journeys but still doesn't seem to have found an ideal formula to use. The proposed installation of ticket barriers may finally get us closer to an answer.

They have only just given the go ahead for 1,400 new homes and 1,540 student places in West Worcester, pouring petrol on the fire. Worcester doesn't seem well served by the planners.

Perhaps they should add a station at Henwick?

Pigeon · 31 Oct 2018

jimm said:
it will remain a difficult place to get to from much of Worcester, unlike a station close to the bypass where people can get out and go around the city to reach it.

It's also a very useful station for the eastern half of Worcester, and gets a lot more people using it now than before they built the Warndon estates (don't know if that's where they all live but the timescales roughly correspond).

And the bypass isn't necessarily any better with the combination of it being a lot further round and the incredible number of people using it (goodness knows where they all come from).

jayah said:
They have only just given the go ahead for 1,400 new homes and 1,540 student places in West Worcester, pouring petrol on the fire. Worcester doesn't seem well served by the planners.

Perhaps they should add a station at Henwick?

Definitely a good idea - and perhaps some of those people trying to use the bypass from the west might decide to catch trains there instead too. As it is the rail provision for the "far side of the river" basically sucks, and Stoulton Road will do nothing to change that. But I suppose reinstating Henwick doesn't look so impressive for self-important windbags to puff themselves up with.

Stroud Valleys · 31 Oct 2018

The problem with Worcester is that should be a bypass in the north of the city to allow the A449 traffic to easily get to the east and Malvern side to connect with the end of the existing bypass. At present all traffic between the Kidderminstet/East Worcester/Malvern has to travel via the centre and is too congested.

Unfortunately the terrain does not lend itself to a new station on the east side of Worcester. It would be like building a new Foregate Station but higher up from the ground.

Parkway is a good station. Whilst it isn't perfect with the lack of a 4th platform and small ca park, it has the potential to grow and has space to expand in the future.

jimm · 31 Oct 2018

Pigeon said:
It's also a very useful station for the eastern half of Worcester, and gets a lot more people using it now than before they built the Warndon estates (don't know if that's where they all live but the timescales roughly correspond).

And the bypass isn't necessarily any better with the combination of it being a lot further round and the incredible number of people using it (goodness knows where they all come from).

I would have though that it was fairly obvious where all the traffic on the bypass comes from - it is people who are trying to avoid the city centre. Like me if I am travelling to/from places west of Worcester in a car

Definitely a good idea - and perhaps some of those people trying to use the bypass from the west might decide to catch trains there instead too. As it is the rail provision for the "far side of the river" basically sucks, and Stoulton Road will do nothing to change that. But I suppose reinstating Henwick doesn't look so impressive for self-important windbags to puff themselves up with.

Henwick might be a good idea for local traffic but the notion that there should be yet another stop in Worcester on London services would be a bit much. Once Worcestershire Parkway opens, there will already be three calls in the space of four miles to serve what is not exactly the biggest city around.

Yet all anyone between Worcester and Oxford hears is self-important windbags (assuming you mean Worcestershire's politicians) complain about how all the stops in 'villages' (as though those places have no value at all compared to mighty Worcester) slow down journeys to and from their great metropolis.

jayah · 31 Oct 2018

Stroud Valleys said:
The problem with Worcester is that should be a bypass in the north of the city to allow the A449 traffic to easily get to the east and Malvern side to connect with the end of the existing bypass. At present all traffic between the Kidderminstet/East Worcester/Malvern has to travel via the centre and is too congested.

Unfortunately the terrain does not lend itself to a new station on the east side of Worcester. It would be like building a new Foregate Station but higher up from the ground.

Parkway is a good station. Whilst it isn't perfect with the lack of a 4th platform and small ca park, it has the potential to grow and has space to expand in the future.

The new housing development will go straight across the roundabout where an obvious northern bypass route would have started, pretty much right along the corridor such a road would use.

Rail access option A drive to the city. Option B Worcester Parkway driving right around the existing congested Ring Road. Development around the new station? Nil.

Kingham West · 31 Oct 2018

Best to stick to facts, I notice , Railfuture National Rail Users Conference , 10Nov @Reading has Ian Walters MD of SLC rail speaking , he will talk about Worcestershire Parkway, so we can find out exactly what is happening.
https://www.railfuture.org.uk/conferences/
Please come along.

Llanigraham · 31 Oct 2018

Stroud Valleys said:
The problem with Worcester is that should be a bypass in the north of the city to allow the A449 traffic to easily get to the east and Malvern side to connect with the end of the existing bypass. At present all traffic between the Kidderminstet/East Worcester/Malvern has to travel via the centre and is too congested.

Most people I know take the long way around and continue along the A449 to the M5 junction, go down the M5 to the Spetchley junction and come off there. Or they come off at Ombersley and cross the river there.

Unfortunately the terrain does not lend itself to a new station on the east side of Worcester. It would be like building a new Foregate Station but higher up from the ground.

Agreed, although there have been previous discussions about rebuild Henwick station.

Parkway is a good station. Whilst it isn't perfect with the lack of a 4th platform and small ca park, it has the potential to grow and has space to expand in the future.

Exactly!

It does strike me that again we have people responding here (not you) who only look at the maps of the area and don't have any actual experience of the city. All cities are unique in their problems because of their geography, location and social structure. There is no "one size fits all solution".

jayah · 31 Oct 2018

jimm said:
I would have though that it was fairly obvious where all the traffic on the bypass comes from - it is people who are trying to avoid the city centre. Like me if I am travelling to/from places west of Worcester in a car

Henwick might be a good idea for local traffic but the notion that there should be yet another stop in Worcester on London services would be a bit much. Once Worcestershire Parkway opens, there will already be three calls in the space of four miles to serve what is not exactly the biggest city around.

Yet all anyone between Worcester and Oxford hears is self-important windbags (assuming you mean Worcestershire's politicians) complain about how all the stops in 'villages' (as though those places have no value at all compared to mighty Worcester) slow down journeys to and from their great metropolis.

The rather messy situation is caused by the politicians and planners failing when it comes to transport planning and integrating such things as roads, buses and railways.

If Worcester had been better planned and politicians thought about more strategic solutions, the car park in a field wouldn't be necessary, as in other cities of similar size.

As you highlight, the central stations will still be the most heavily used but current development policies seem likely only to worsen the accessibility problems unless driving from a new estate in west Worcester to Norton to catch a Birmingham train now passes for a solution.

jimm · 31 Oct 2018

jayah said:
The rather messy situation is caused by the politicians and planners failing when it comes to transport planning and integrating such things as roads, buses and railways.

If Worcester had been better planned and politicians thought about more strategic solutions, the car park in a field wouldn't be necessary, as in other cities of similar size.

As you highlight, the central stations will still be the most heavily used but current development policies seem likely only to worsen the accessibility problems unless driving from a new estate in west Worcester to Norton to catch a Birmingham train now passes for a solution.

If Worcester had been better planned... :rolleyes:

I doubt think those responsible were too worried about what might be appropriate for the 21st century when the streets in central Worcester got laid out hundreds of years ago, or even in the Victorian period. The city has to live with that legacy. Unless someone is just going to put a bulldozer through it.

Oxford is not a lot bigger than Worcester and a lot of people living there also find it a lot easier to drive to a car park in a field (whether a railway one or the M40 coach one) than to try to reach the central station.

It might be lovely if there were lots of buses running to and from the Parkway all over the city from early until late but in this day and age in somewhere like Worcester, that is just not going to happen. And even if someone came up with money to pay for it, the buses would still have to battle through the traffic.

If anyone is minded to drive to Worcestershire Parkway to try to get a train to Birmingham in the morning peak, they will soon give up on the idea, unless XC is about to conjure up lots more 170s out of thin air for the Cardiff route so people will be able to get on board. But if London passengers head out of town, Birmingham passengers might stand a chance of finding a space at Shrub Hill in future.

jayah · 31 Oct 2018

jimm said:
If Worcester had been better planned...

I doubt think those responsible were too worried about what might be appropriate for the 21st century when the streets in central Worcester got laid out hundreds of years ago, or even in the Victorian period. The city has to live with that legacy. Unless someone is just going to put a bulldozer through it.

Oxford is not a lot bigger than Worcester and a lot of people living there also find it a lot easier to drive to a car park in a field (whether a railway one or the M40 coach one) than to try to reach the central station.

It might be lovely if there were lots of buses running to and from the Parkway all over the city from early until late but in this day and age in somewhere like Worcester, that is just not going to happen. And even if someone came up with money to pay for it, the buses would still have to battle through the traffic.

If anyone is minded to drive to Worcestershire Parkway to try to get a train to Birmingham in the morning peak, they will soon give up on the idea, unless XC is about to conjure up lots more 170s out of thin air for the Cardiff route so people will be able to get on board. But if London passengers head out of town, Birmingham passengers might stand a chance of finding a space at Shrub Hill in future.

A few London passengers abandon Shrub Hill so that a few Birmingham passengers can have a chance at parking? This isn't really a solution is it?

Lancaster, Oxford, York, Exeter they were all medieval once. They haven't all been taken hostage by the past though.

jimm · 1 Nov 2018

Did you miss what I said above about Oxford?

800,000 passengers passed through Oxford Parkway in 2016-17, starting from a big fat zero a couple of years earlier. I expect that next month we will see that figure comfortably pass the million for 2017-18. And plenty of other people drive to Thornhill park-and-ride and use the M40 coaches. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the ease of access to Oxford station, is it?

Have you ever tried to reach Lancaster station in a car? Magical mystery tour of the city centre one-way system is a fair description in my experience. Some of my relatives living on the edge of Yorkshire Dales will always take the longer drive to Oxenholme to catch a train rather than go anywhere near Lancaster.

York - yes it's a piece of cake getting to the station in the peak... Exeter St David's is accessible from much of the city without having to go anywhere near the medieval centre.

Mordac · 1 Nov 2018

jayah said:
A few London passengers abandon Shrub Hill so that a few Birmingham passengers can have a chance at parking? This isn't really a solution is it?

Lancaster, Oxford, York, Exeter they were all medieval once. They haven't all been taken hostage by the past though.

Have you seen where Lancaster station is? The whole place is very much not a model for public transport integration or anything to do with planning, believe me.
EDIT: @jimm beat me to it

Doctor Fegg · 1 Nov 2018

jayah said:
Lancaster, Oxford, York, Exeter they were all medieval once. They haven't all been taken hostage by the past though.

Um.

Worcester was the city which blasted away its medieval street layout for a horrid relief road (City Walls Road) in the 1960s.

Oxford was the city which refused to blast away Christ Church Meadows for a horrid relief road at exactly the same time.

Your evidence for Worcester being "taken hostage by the past" appears to be that no-one ever built a chuffing big car park outside Shrub Hill, which might be a fair point (there's certainly the land, if you were to dynamite Elgar House and perhaps those low-rent shed-type shops over the road where a kid got acid thrown in his face), but is scant evidence for the whole city being some kind of medieval throwback.

jayah · 1 Nov 2018

Doctor Fegg said:
Um.

Worcester was the city which blasted away its medieval street layout for a horrid relief road (City Walls Road) in the 1960s.

Oxford was the city which refused to blast away Christ Church Meadows for a horrid relief road at exactly the same time.

Your evidence for Worcester being "taken hostage by the past" appears to be that no-one ever built a chuffing big car park outside Shrub Hill, which might be a fair point (there's certainly the land, if you were to dynamite Elgar House and perhaps those low-rent shed-type shops over the road where a kid got acid thrown in his face), but is scant evidence for the whole city being some kind of medieval throwback.

I am not the one saying for example the single river crossing east to west is an accident of history / geography - my argument is that it is a failure of planning, compounded by authorising more development on the west bank, right across any future northern ring road.

Many other cities e.g. Exeter have equally if not more difficult geography, but aren't in such a mess as having two stations much of the population find very difficult to access.

Worcestershire Parkway station progress

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