You may think you have "explained the commuting thing". That's your opinion. But if i was in Worcester and there was the option of driving to a nice parkway without having to battle through the city's less than fab roads - which I am sadly familiar with, thanks - to get to Shrub Hill, or be dropped off at Foregate Street, then what do you think I would do?
Well that depends on which direction you are coming from but as any local knows the Western Bypass is chocka at peak times and getting across the river bridge is just as bad. So you might do what a lot or people do from the Warndon area and drive to Droitwich and clog up the local roads there as an alternative! Or of course persevere and use the City centre stations.
You may well be familiar with Worcester's roads, however unless you live in the city or commute to it every day, you cannot give an accurate description on what goes on. You will find that it is uncommon to see someone dropped off at Foregate St., but at Shrub Hill it is a far more common occurrence. Foregate serves the city centre almost entirely, whist Shrub Hill is used more so by residents on the eastern/northern side of the city. I admit that those on the western side of the river have no access to a station (which is why I advocate building a small station at Henwick) – either way, if they wanted to drive to another station, be it Parkway/Droitwich/Warwick etc., they still have to negociate the A4440 (Southern By-pass) which suffers from congestion all day.
Moggie is correct that people from Warndon, Fernhill Heath and Claines will drive to Droitwich, where there is also minimal parking, but shortens their commute by a good 20 mins. A similar story can be said for Hartlebury: a fair proportion of commuters drive to Droitwich (more services) rather than use the station near them.
Yes, the bypass is busy - and building this station will only add to the traffic on it - but lots of people in the south, east and north of the city will simply head straight out there the instant Parkway opens, as will others from further afield, whatever the road conditions, so they can avoid going anywhere near the city centre.
Building Worcester Parkway would not have much (if any) impact on the traffic using the Worcester by-passes. Since new people who use the station will have previously used the same roads to get to the M5 and drive to their respective destinations. The A4440 between Whittington (A44) and Ketch (A38) roundabouts is now being dualled so that will help any situation that may arise. Very few people drive through Worcester anyhow, and the station is next to roads they already use.
I'm not necessarily saying it is irrelevant, but I would agree, Worcestershire Parkway is also for connections onto the XC line north/south. People do drive from Droitwich Spa and Bromsgrove to Warwick Parkway, since the towns are well connected to the motorway, but these people are travelling to London only, and not destinations such as Manchester, Bristol, Leeds etc. Building the new station would reduce the attraction of driving to Warwick, so there would likely be an increase on people using the London services, which is no bad thing.It's irrelevant to the main purpose of the new station which IS to provide an intercity connection to the North / South West axis from AND to Worcestershire. Incidentally I'm sure many people do drive to Warwick Parkway from 'Worcestershire' which of course includes places like Droitwich and Bromsgrove using the convenience of the M5/M42.
Well go to Leamington Spa in the morning peak and see how good the current Chiltern and LM services are at deterring Birmingham commuters from cramming on to already-full XC trains - they're not.
The situation in Worcester is not exactly the same – whereas Leamington has all the trains direct, getting an XC train at Worcester would require a change, whilst the LM services are still direct. As I've said before, you can adjust the pricing of tickets on respective routes to discourage Parkway-New St. commuting; it's not as if XC don't do that already...