TRAFFIC chaos is expected in the city centre this weekend, when the whole of the Mancunian Way will close for vital repairs to damaged sections of the carriageway.
The route, once dubbed Manchester's `Highway in the Sky' will shut from 7pm on Friday and will be re-opened at 6am on Monday.
Neither of the city's two Premiership football clubs are playing at home, which will alleviate some of the problems, but it is expected that roads - particularly on the southern approaches to the city centre - will be far busier than usual throughout the weekend, and drivers are being warned to allow plenty of additional time for journeys.
Manchester council has already put up advance warning signs.
Diversions along alternative routes will be set up.
Drivers crossing the city have only just seen a return to normal after the three-week blockage of Deansgate, as part of a major project to upgrade Victorian water mains.
The main route through Manchester was closed to through traffic from early August at the junction with Quay Street and Peter Street, and reopened in time for the city's Pride festival on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The Mancunian Way will be closed in both directions from the entrance to the underpass at Egerton Street at the Castlefield end, to Fairfield Street near Piccadilly.
Diversions will be via Fairfield Street, Whitworth Street West, Deansgate and Liverpool Road.
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Bean B4, manchester (01/09/2008 at 14:28)
Black Flag (01/09/2008 at 14:48)
It seems like this is a no win situation at the minute. If the roads aren't maintained, people moan about the lack of investment. If the roads are maintained, the same people will moan about it being a conspiracy to make congestion look worse than it is.
MPs gravy train, UK (01/09/2008 at 14:57)
JAM65 (01/09/2008 at 15:08)
Polky (01/09/2008 at 15:09)
You never know when you'll see it, unless you get to hear about road works in advance!
Ace Shakepseare, manchester (01/09/2008 at 15:31)
citycentre, manchester (01/09/2008 at 15:38)
judging by the way people drive, they certainly havnt noticed the cycle lanes, maybe they need to be made wider
Fran M (Permissum Populus Constituo) (01/09/2008 at 15:47)
The report prepared for TfL identifies the knock on problems that are caused by such policies. Referring to the taking of roadspace from traffic use by means of traffic light sequencing, road narrowing, traffic calming and roadworks,it says that based on modelling work that the impact of these interventions is “compounding rather than simply additive and that widespread incremental removal of network capacity was reducing the resilience of the network and it’s ability to accommodate out-of-course events.”
Simply, when a major route is closed, the traffic that has been diverted onto that route, through engineering policy has nowhere to go.
As the TfL report says, the resilience of the road network has been engineered out of existence.