Motorists are being urged to help beat congestion in Manchester city centre – by staying away.
Plans are being drawn-up to cut down on cross-town traffic by getting drivers to skirt around the city centre at rush-hour.
The proposed move is part of a 'radical' 10-year transport strategy that Manchester council hopes will make the city a driving force in the national economic recovery.
It comes more than a year after voters rejected a Transport Innovation Fund bid that would have seen £3bn investment in public transport in exchange for a peak-time congestion charge.
A consultation document for the council's new transport strategy now says changing signs and junction layouts on the inner ring road has 'potential' to reduce current traffic by 'a quarter'.
But extra cash would be needed because there is no funding for the changes in the £1.5bn Greater Manchester Transport Fund, the 'plan B' that replaced the failed TIF bid.
Efficiency
The council's document says: “In order to maximise the efficiency of the existing road network in the city centre, we need to develop an effective traffic interception and circulation strategy.
“This will involve making improvements to the signal junctions, signing and road layouts on the inner ring road and other orbital routes.
“This has the potential to remove up to a quarter of the existing traffic, comprising trips that are currently either entering the city centre unnecessarily or travelling across the city centre to reach their destination.”
Up to 22,000 cars carrying 27,000 people now enter the city in the morning rush hour – a third of all trips.
The council wants to see no rise in the number of cars by 2020, even though the number of vehicles travelling to the city is anticipated to swell to 35,000 a day.
The document says this could be done by improving public transport, boosting park and ride facilities, promoting changes in travel behaviour and increasing the number of people travelling in each car.
It says the council wants to look at 'modest interventions' to tackle congestion, including traffic management and parking measures, enforcement and better co-ordination of traffic lights. There are plans to direct vehicles to car parks around the ring road with the help of mobile phone and SatNav systems.
Talks have taken place on setting up a joint parking strategy with Salford council.
The M.E.N. understands changes to the ring road might include plans to split traffic on Miller Street so that part of it runs behind the new Co-op development.
Attractive
The council say it will work on a strategy to intercept 'far side' traffic and direct drivers to 'more appropriate' routes including the M60 to make them 'more attractive' than driving through the city centre.
Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of Manchester council, told business leaders at a meeting how the strategy, revealed earlier in the M.E.N. was a 'radical package' that could help Manchester become the 'engine' for national economic recovery.
Figures by the Department for Transport last month show people travelled across the region 13 seconds per mile quicker on average in 2008-09 than the previous year.
It means journey times have reduced by 5.8 per cent on four years ago, but Greater Manchester's transport chiefs have said the recession is behind the blip.
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The only way is to study methods so that people can work from home, i would if i could.
There's no need for signs...the roadworks do it for me.
Last week was a dream on the roads, and all commuters know why. Something to ponder on surely?
Has anyone been on the ring roads at rush hour? You could walk faster.
QUOTE "Plans are being drawn-up to cut down on cross-town traffic by getting drivers to skirt around the city centre at rush-hour."
Which genius came up with that one then? Any local knows that to get from say Chester Road to Great Ancoats Street the fastest route is via the Mancunian Way. I cannot believe it’s taken so long to get signage put in place to take advantage of this.
It's actually quicker going through the city at rush hour rather than using the ring road. The ring road is awful even off peak - The Regent Road/Mancunian Way junction with Chester Road roundabout heading out of town needs redesigning as it creates a massive bottle neck, horrendous at any time of day usually. Same goes for its junction with Water Street and the Trinity Way extension.
More school holidays,that's all that's needed.
Why is it so much better when the schools are "off". That's the question that needs to be asked.
Edina Clouds: "More school holidays,that's all that's needed. Why is it so much better when the schools are "off". That's the question that needs to be asked."
I would have thought that was fairly obvious - there are fewer journeys being made. It's even quieter on Christmas Day, when most people aren't in work either. I don't see how thoses bit of knowledge could help to change the situation at other times of the year.
Black Flag,
As I am sure you know, the supposed relevance is that most people's answer to road congestion is to try and stop people who are not them from using the roads.
citycentre "As I am sure you know, the supposed relevance is that most people's answer to road congestion is to try and stop people who are not them from using the roads."
What really grates with me is that Our Great Leaders (who obviously know better than us) constantly bleat on about stopping cengestion by taxing the working man (or woman), taxing their parking space, speed humps - the list of deliberate inconveniences is endless. But they never ever ever persecute the biggest offender: school run traffic, most of which really is totally unneccessary. *Most* kids live within walking distance of school.
As to Manchester Centre - I've been working at an office on Deansgate this last week and it's not the volume of cars - it's loads and loads of roadworks - I've never seen so many. And as for the potholes - I need an osteopath now. Or a 4x4 with big balloon tyres - our leftie lords and masters will love that!
If the government made it compulsory for companies and employers to allow their staff to work flexitime, even if just by half an hour a day, i.e. start at 9.30 and finish at 6pm instead of 5.30pm, there would not be as much of a rush to be behind the desk by 9am! At 9.15 a.m. the traffic is virtually gone!
J smith I agree, why don't councils encourage companies to allow staff to work from home where possible?
Manchester City Council would be better directing planes in the sky rather than traffic on the roads, after all their heads are always in the clouds.
I doubt it. you can't see the signs in manchester for the signs.
A MINIMUM limit of 30 mph is what's needed, or a £100 fine. That'll keep the traffic moving.
Orb: "But they never ever ever persecute the biggest offender: school run traffic, most of which really is totally unneccessary. *Most* kids live within walking distance of school."
Thus proving citycentre's point nicely.
The main method used to price road use is fuel duty, which is applied irrespective of what reason you use the road for.
Anybody can come up with a reason why every other group other than the one they're in shouldn't be on the road at a given time, but it's a pointless exercise.
Did you think that one up just now PW?
All the best ideas come in a flash of inspiration Higgs Boson ;-)
Mind you there are plenty of drivers behind me at times who think it's already in force.
"Motorists are being urged to help beat congestion in Manchester city centre – by staying away."
Now which clever person thought of this bright idea?? What are we supposed to do when we work in the city centre?! We would all happily stay home if the Manchester Council was to pay our wages in full if we stayed away from the city centre!! Next time, please think carefully before saying anything.
Excuse me MEN but the ASA told you to print the truth and what you printed is not the truth is it? It never was £3bn of investment in PT, nearly half that money was to be spent on a con charge system etc.
"It comes more than a year after voters rejected a Transport Innovation Fund bid that would have seen £3bn investment in public transport in exchange for a peak-time congestion charge."
Paul Bobs. I agree with you! The idea of telecommuting was first muted around twenty years ago and little happened! For example,why fill the CIS building with several hundred or thousand people when they could stay at home and do the same job with a company issue computer/fax machine and expenses to cover electricity etc. Probably be more efficient too without any distractions from colleagues and it would solve a lot of child minding problems for mums in the school holidays. The main downside is that people would miss the company and 'getting out of the house'! Even the Council could empty the Town Hall by doing this,only hands on people need to be there. Could even use the empty spaces for social housing! This is the future to empty the roads at rush hour!
No Vic-Picc tunnel to interconnect a fast urban train network; the administrative center around Kings St and the few big stores on Market St and Deansgate are the only things daytime visitors are interested in; if the have to queue for ages their are many more town around Manchester offering good shopping. As for the commuters; they'll have to get up real early, perhaps before 08:00, so that they can get into their offices by 09:30 as usual.
But extra cash would be needed because there is no funding for the changes in the £1.5bn Greater Manchester Transport Fund, the 'plan B' that replaced the failed TIF bid.
Now where did this plan B come from we were told when the vote was on there is no other option it has to be a yes vote. Amazing what can be done with some head scratching it proves the CC was only wanted to prise money from us.
Umpteen people came on here telling Leese and co to have traffic light coordination, to have more round abouts make streets one way in the rush hour I also notice again they are banging on about an increase in congestion when facts are it is dropping. Advice that cost completely nothing given on the MEN web pages as appose to the £3 billion they were quite willing to rip us off for.
I see the councillors are still on the gravy train and no offer of a resignation for getting this CC horribly wrong, are you reading this councillor Leese and CEO Bernstein.
As I said before they should be hanging their heads in shame these idiots were willing to saddle the people on Greater Manchester with an horrendous debt for generations.
Remember this at the local elections, my councillors and there are three of them will not be getting my vote in Mossley, when I asked them about this CC they all were quite enthusiastic about it.
Orb, Rochdale
I can think of two ways to discourage, or stop, what you deem as unnwelcome road use by specific groups over others; one would be to introduce a time related charge for road use, so that using the roads during peak times was more expensive than at other times, and attracted a specific charge (nearly all other transport methods I can think of use this system for regulating peak time demand), this was suggested but the people of GM declined. How did you vote?
The other would be to set up some new council office to which people could, for a fee, apply for a permit to use the roads at peak times, have their registration logged and those seen driving without fined heavily. Dosn't sound that good an idea to me. How would you propose "persecuting" certain drivers off the roads, while leaving others alone?
Dzenko, Manchester
"Now which clever person thought of this bright idea?? What are we supposed to do when we work in the city centre?! "
They could start by reading the whole story, and maybe the actual proposals rather than commenting on the first line, had you managed just a few more words you would have found "Plans are being drawn-up to cut down on cross-town traffic by getting drivers to skirt around the city centre at rush-hour" which sounds sensible enough to me