I VERY nearly missed my own wedding because of Manchester traffic. My mistake? Getting hitched on a Friday.
I strolled up the aisle of a lovely church in Little Hulton looking every inch the serene bride, but inwardly seething at the horrific traffic jam that had turned my leisurely hair and make-up session into a Benny Hill-style sketch.
I was usually up, washed, dressed and sitting at my desk by 6.45am so had booked a 9.30 am appointment at Kendals, blissfully unaware that the whole of the East Lancs road pretty much ground to a halt between 7.30am and 9.30am.
Heart pounding and face getting ever redder I sat trapped in my car with my sister as we watched the minutes tick by. We missed our appointment slots but Kendals, bless 'em, crammed us in.
There was no time for anything but a quick blow dry before dashing back home again, but my big day was two hours behind schedule. I had one leg in my Lustre Sheen tights when the wedding car arrived.
Anyone from Manchester who has heard this story has had but one response: "You did what? You tried to get into town for that time on a week day? Serves you right."
Worse
But the really worrying thing about this saga is that it happened NINE years ago. And traffic has been going from bad to worse ever since.
I am well aware that by driving into the city I am part of the problem and it is my own fault for living so near to one of Greater Manchester's most important routes.
If I am not out of the house by 7.10am I join a queue just to get off our estate and on to the road that takes me to the East Lancs.
I hate being late so set off earlier and earlier - only to find pretty much everyone else has had the same idea.
And I know I have turned into a Manchester version of Reggie Perrin with a full range of excuses to rival his favourite `defective junction box at New Malden'.
It also doesn't help that we live so near the M60 network where any accident can, in minutes, have an effect on traffic within a three mile radius.
The mere mention of problems at the Eccles interchange can fast forward our family breakfast into panic.
When you travel the same road at roughly four miles an hour you get to know it quite well - but I really have had enough of that seven mile stretch of suburbia
On a good day, parts of the journey can make me smile.
The huge banners that Moorside School hang across the front of the building proudly proclaiming every academic success.
A row of trees at Irlams O'th' Heights which have made a magnificent Autumn display that wouldn't look out of place in New England.
But mostly I sit there listening to the radio feeling despondent - unless it is half term, anytime after 10.30am or 7pm, or the weekend. Then it becomes a magical route that can get me to Deansgate or home in 15 minutes.
So all this will make me vote YES when the congestion charge referendum paper drops through my letterbox.
I am not naive enough to believe that paying to get into the city will make all the problems disappear at a stroke. The rush hour may well just start later and finish later.
But I really do believe that the chance to upgrade our transport system to the tune of £2.75bn is too good an opportunity to miss.
Only then will people like me who very rarely dip a toe into that other world of commuting, find they don't like it and get back into their cosy car, make a meaningful change to their travelling lives.
I have stood on the bleak platform at Walkden station with the wind whistling round my ankles wondering if the solitary figure in the gloom at the other end of the platform really is a serial killer.
And the last time I got the tram from town to Eccles I stood in a partially eaten pepperoni pizza that was poking out from under my seat, listened to every word of `Firestarter' through my neighbour's ipod and was then unceremoniously dumped at Weaste station in sub-zero temperatures while the man on the intercom made such a tortuous explanation about why we had to change trams that even my weary fellow travellers started to titter.
Cheap
Tram tickets aren't cheap so the very least the commuter can expect is cleanliness and punctuality.
Oh, and being able to actually get on the thing without taking your life in your hands. Some of the pushing and shoving at peak times has genuinely frightened me. Is it too much to expect someone on the platform making sure that no-one dies?
Years ago when I worked in Liverpool I car-shared with another journalist and also used the Merseyrail train network. It too got very crowded, occasionally smelly and out-of the blue cancellations always seemed to happen when you had the busiest day ahead, but as an exercise in shifting huge amounts of people at peak times it worked a treat.
During this hard-fought debate I have heard every argument for and against more than once, and often those arguments have been yelled down my ear by some angry reader or campaigner who violently disagrees with something they read in the M.E.N.
But the fact remains that our roads are choked and I, in my tiny Ford Ka, am making it worse
Unless something is done, and some hard decisions are made, one day in the not too distant future they will grind to a halt completely.
So to congestion charging I say: Bring it On.
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Showing comments 1 to 25 and replies | View All
Polky (25/11/2008 at 12:51)
VOTE NO for sanity.
Caped Crusader, Gotham City (25/11/2008 at 12:51)
stalyvegasblue (25/11/2008 at 12:58)
Peter (25/11/2008 at 12:59)
Polky (25/11/2008 at 13:04)
How did you get to be Deputy Editor if you can't be bothered researching the item you are commenting on?
£2.75bn will NOT all go on transport improvments as at least £1bn is set aside to set up the charge and "contingency". A further £1bn will be spent on Metrolink, which will do absolutely NOTHING to improve your journey time.
If you vote YES, then you are a turkey voting for Xmas.
Alan Kelly (25/11/2008 at 13:04)
In the past 9 years traffic on all roads except motorways has significantly reduced. Therefore you are supporting the congestion charge on a failed principle.
Mind you I expect you are rich enough to pay the charge at the expense of the porrer section of society!!
Laura Norder, Didsbury (25/11/2008 at 13:06)
You do know that all (35) of the 'NO' camp, will be making wax effigies of you - while sharpening their little hatpins - after that revelation, don't you? ;-)
Vote 'YES' for progress!
bluetony (25/11/2008 at 13:06)
Trumpetman21 (25/11/2008 at 13:13)
Build some more then!
Population increases demand similar increases in infrastructure are made.
http://www.racfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=597&Itemid=35
Pushkin (25/11/2008 at 13:29)
PO (25/11/2008 at 13:40)
15 years ago GMPTE planned an extension to the tram network to include the Airport - I know because I lived in a house blighted by the prospect of it for 10 years. That is until I sold it for next to nothing because I couldn't wait any longer! The money has been around for a long time for some improvements to the public transport system it just hasn;t been allocated properly.
It is unfair and unjust to suggest that people should be taxed out of their cars. Make public transport better and it will be used more and paid for by those who use it.
Look at the tram stations like Dane Road, Sale, Brooklands etc, they are an utter disgrace, the cost of tidying them up would be no more that the amount spent by the councils on their Christmas parties and decorations. The tax payer deserve this as part of the tax they already pay and the commuters deserve it because of the exorbitant travel costs they already pay.
Of course, therein lies the problem, the tax payer! This is another stealth tax on the workers, it's not enough that I have to lose a huge chunk of my salary in income tax, I'm now going to be taxed before I even get to work. Disgusting!
PO (25/11/2008 at 13:40)
15 years ago GMPTE planned an extension to the tram network to include the Airport - I know because I lived in a house blighted by the prospect of it for 10 years. That is until I sold it for next to nothing because I couldn't wait any longer! The money has been around for a long time for some improvements to the public transport system it just hasn;t been allocated properly.
It is unfair and unjust to suggest that people should be taxed out of their cars. Make public transport better and it will be used more and paid for by those who use it.
Look at the tram stations like Dane Road, Sale, Brooklands etc, they are an utter disgrace, the cost of tidying them up would be no more that the amount spent by the councils on their Christmas parties and decorations. The tax payer deserve this as part of the tax they already pay and the commuters deserve it because of the exorbitant travel costs they already pay.
Of course, therein lies the problem, the tax payer! This is another stealth tax on the workers, it's not enough that I have to lose a huge chunk of my salary in income tax, I'm now going to be taxed before I even get to work. Disgusting!
SamV, Manchester (25/11/2008 at 14:05)
So liverpool have a mass transport system and no congestion charge... hardly seems fair.
Laura Norder, Didsbury (25/11/2008 at 14:13)
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1081478_ccharge_is_highway_robbery
Mark,Radcliffe. (25/11/2008 at 14:14)
Jay B, oldham (25/11/2008 at 14:26)
if you want better public transport then lobby your mp's to get the government to invest in them the way they should have been doing over the last 10 years.
i think you'll find that more and more people have actually gone on the buses, trains and trams.
but they've never expanded while the numbers of commuters has increased.
topped with the number of cars drivers actually falling i dont really know where Maria's coming from?
the amount of road space avaliable on my daily commute has fallen by 30% so i have to occasionally sit in a tailback because everyones being forced into one lane.
why? because that twin lane road is now a single lane and a bus lane.
so that means standing traffic and congestion! yes.
but who's created it? the local council!
so who's polluting the air?
the local council by creating these blttle necks!
and now we're being conned by the con tax making us think its our fault!
wrong yet again!
i hope people dont get fooled by all of this.
you're only getting a few extra buses and carriages at peak times for the debt that manchester will be burdened with!
Dean, Swinton (25/11/2008 at 14:26)
A lone Cumbrian gazing through the mist (25/11/2008 at 14:29)
Good luck with your yes vote and, interesting to note you are happy to be taxed AGAIN for owning a vehicle!
On a more sombre note, should the CON be voted in, just how long will it be before people boycott public transport, for fear of getting punched, kicked or stamped on the head, by some worthless bunch of scum, an all too regular occurrence if we're to believe what you publish week in week out!
Alf Murrey-Mint, Freezing at a Bus Stop (25/11/2008 at 14:34)
"But the really worrying thing about this saga is that it happened NINE years ago. And traffic has been going from bad to worse ever since."
But the reality is that traffic flow in Manchester fas fallen by 11% since 1999, in Greater Manchester it has increased by 2%.
What has cause this congestion while traffic levels have been falling 11% for it to get so bad? A correlation the previous 9 years and 9 years hence should show that if traffic decreases in Manchester congestion gets worse.
Note;
Figures for traffic flow are from GMTU 2007 traffic report 1390 page 4 - and can (and should have been) checked before writing the article
Ben DeToy (25/11/2008 at 15:03)
citycentre, manchester (25/11/2008 at 15:23)
you mean this article
'C-charge is highway robbery'
by M.E.N. assistant editor Robert Ridley
it was published yesterday
citycentre, manchester (25/11/2008 at 15:35)
interesting stuff, and there is certainly room to expand the between city trunk routes; a bit tricker once the traffic enters the cities of course
i liked their view on the TIF package as well
As presented this afternoon, Manchester's proposals meet these criteria and can be welcomed as a carefully worked-out, integrated strategy for the whole of the Greater Manchester Region.
The Foundation particularly welcomed the commitment to ensure that real improvements in public transport would be in place before motorists would be asked to pay any charges.
Professor Stephen Glaister, Director of the Royal Automobile Club Foundation, said:- "This package offers a better future for local people and the Manchester economy than the do-nothing alternative.
"Government now needs to work out a coherent long-term roads strategy, involving progress towards a combination of good-value investment in extra road capacity and national road pricing to replace fuel duty."
SamV, Manchester (25/11/2008 at 15:42)
bluetony
This is actually a counter arguement to an AGAINST article published on Monday
In my opinion the other one was better written but then I'm biased towards the NO vote
Kurt Stephens (25/11/2008 at 15:47)
Trumpet - see the £165m allocated to extending the A6 announced today by DfT.
We are not going to be able to build enough roads to get us out of the ever growing congestion, they'll simply fill up.
Public transport moves many more times the number of people, in a much smaller place.
The fact is as we need to move more and more people along the same corridor buses, trams and trains become the most sensible option.
TIF will deliver those capacity increases that will never be delivered by soley building the odd road here and there.
We need extra capacity, TIF is the only way we are going to get it, a No vote is a vote against improving public transport, and a vote against releasing the strangle on the local economy.
Harry H, Just say NO ( to the CON charge) and the Living Ham. (25/11/2008 at 15:47)