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A city MP has said the time is right to rethink where traffic can go in central Newcastle after the latest collison involving a bus and pedestrian.

Chi Onwurah is to write to the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority over her concerns that more could be done to prevent such incidents.

And she has questioned if, as part of the work that is rerouting roads around Central Station, a wider view could not be taken, with consideration given to reducing traffic on some of the busiest routes.

“Like many people, I walk through the city centre and am concerned by what I see in areas such as those around The Gate, near Grainger Market and Old Eldon Square,” she said.

“I’m going to write to the passenger transport authority to ask about the safety record in Newcastle, how that compares with other cities and whether there are any bus companies who are worse than others.

“They’re pedestrianising a lot around Central Station, which I’ve written to the council about because I’m concerned about how it is congesting traffic. But given that that work is going on to redraw that area it would seem to make sense to have a look at the flow of traffic around the city centre as a whole.”

Peter Gray, Newcastle City Council’s head of highways, said the number of pedestrians who have been knocked down was of real concern to the authority, and work was already well under way to try and find a solution to the problem.

“The leader of the council himself has met with bus companies to see what can we can do together to reduce the number of accidents in the city centre,” he said.

“And in response to what has happened over the last two years, we are about to install countdown indicators to traffic signals at the junction of Grainger Street and Newgate Street which will show pedestrians crossing there the number of seconds they have left before the lights change.

“We hope that this warning will give people the information they need to decide whether or not they have sufficient time to cross safely. And if it does work it’s something we will look to install at other locations in the city.

“There are many measures we have taken to improve road safety, such as altering traffic light timings and reducing the number of traffic lanes to cut traffic volumes. We also have 20mph speed limits in the city centre. The work around the Central Station involves making it more pedestrian friendly but there is a limit to what we can do in the city centre when traffic and pedestrians are in close proximity. We are always looking to make it safer for pedestrians and raise awareness of road safety, but would like to reiterate that everyone has a responsibility for their own safety and to take care when crossing roads.”

That message was backed up by Tom Dodds, stakeholder manager for Go North East.

“Unfortunately, it is be­­coming obvious to us that many of these incidents are the result of pedestrians not taking care,” he said.

“As a society we seem to have forgotten to look left, right and left again before crossing the road, and there are an increasing number of incidents where people are distracted by mobile phones or where they are wearing headphones instead of listening to the traffic.”

Mr Dodds welcomed the council’s plans for countdown timers, but rejected the suggestion that further pedestrianisation may be the way forward.

“It would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that we need to ban buses from streets,” he said.

“Many of these incidents are happening on streets where all other traffic has been removed, so it’s impossible to get hit by a car, and it always looks like buses are the ones involved in collisions. The figures are skewed.

“Buses are one of the safest ways to travel right into the heart of the city centre in an environmentally friendly way.”