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Metrolink Updates

9M views 58K replies 802 participants last post by  Ashtonian 
#1 ·
Seeing as the last thread seems to have gone here is another...

The following shows the madness of spending money on roads to relief congestion instead of trams...

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/166/166225_bumper_business_chokes_the_roads.html

Bumper business chokes the roads
Yakub Qureshi


JAMS: early morning traffic on the A57TAMESIDE has the biggest traffic growth in the country, figures reveal today.

A congestion blacklist published by the Department of Transport showed there were 36 per cent more cars and lorries on Tameside roads than in 1997 - the biggest increase in England.

Two other Greater Manchester areas, Oldham, in second place with 32.4 per cent, and Bury, 18 per cent, also recorded some of the sharpest rises in congestion. Tameside, Oldham and Bury were all above the national increase of 11 per cent.

Transport groups said the findings confirmed their worst fears about congestion in the region and blamed the delay of the Metrolink extension for increasing traffic jams.

Traffic bosses said they believed the bulk of the increase was due to the addition of the M60 Denton to Middleton extension, which had brought more traffic to area.

Coun Alan Whitehead, Tameside's executive member for technical services, said: "When there are good connections more people will want to use them. Regeneration has seen a lot firms moving into Tameside.

"People want to come to the great workshops of Manchester, and developments in places like Glossop, High Peak and Saddleworth means there will be additional traffic coming through Tameside."

Congestion

He believed the planned Metrolink extension, which was promised in the government's election manifesto, would help ease congestion.

Andrew Shaw, co-ordinator of Friends of the Earth Oldham, said: "There has definitely been an increase of traffic. The M60 has brought an associated increase in traffic throughout the borough and people are travelling more between their homes and work.

"The government is throwing a lot of money at the road network at the same time that it has reneged on its promise for the new Metrolink to Oldham and Tameside."

The Liberal Democrats, who requested the information, which dates from when Labour came into government, said motorists should be charged for driving into urban areas.

Tom Brake MP, the party's transport spokesman, claimed London-style congestion fees would cut traffic and fund better public transport.

He said: "John Prescott infamously remarked that if the government did not reduce road traffic it would have failed. These figures are the clearest indicator that it has failed."
 
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#19,641 ·
I'm really starting to wish that the destination display was something other than "St Werburgh's Road".

It's nonsense to expect residents of Shaw/Oldham/Rochdale, etc, to know of that totally insignificant residential street in south Manchester. I know that most of them will not be travelling beyond the city centre - so it is a moot point what it displays, be it Chorlton or whatever - but it nevertheless looks very, for want of a better term, naff.
 
#19,642 ·
I'm really starting to wish that the destination display was something other than "St Werburgh's Road".

It's nonsense to expect residents of Shaw/Oldham/Rochdale, etc, to know of that totally insignificant residential street in south Manchester. I know that most of them will not be travelling beyond the city centre - so it is a moot point what it displays, be it Chorlton or whatever - but it nevertheless looks very, for want of a better term, naff.
Well you'll only have a few more months of it retroscient, once E.Dids opens it'll be gone for good.
 
#19,643 ·
I'm really starting to wish that the destination display was something other than "St Werburgh's Road".

It's nonsense to expect residents of Shaw/Oldham/Rochdale, etc, to know of that totally insignificant residential street in south Manchester. I know that most of them will not be travelling beyond the city centre - so it is a moot point what it displays, be it Chorlton or whatever - but it nevertheless looks very, for want of a better term, naff.
Not totally insignificant - I live nearby:banana:
 
#19,644 ·
It's nonsense to expect residents of Shaw/Oldham/Rochdale, etc, to know of that totally insignificant residential street in south Manchester. I know that most of them will not be travelling beyond the city centre - so it is a moot point what it displays, be it Chorlton or whatever - but it nevertheless looks very, for want of a better term, naff.
Are people in Chorlton expected to know where Shaw and Crompton are? What's naff for one is just as naff for another... :cheers:
 
#19,645 ·
Been having a nosy round MediaCityUK this afternoon. PIDs at MedicaCityUK are a bit off as it indicated that the Eccles service in the platform was another 2 minutes away with a Piccadilly tram 3 minutes away. The Piccadilly service didn't arrive in the platform for another 5ish minutes. Saw tram 3025 which was pretty empty with just a few folks on board and this seemed to be the story for most of the trams I passed in the car on Eccles line....

:banana:
 
#19,646 ·
Aye I don't think the desti blind is that big a deal, except for those people who decide where they want to go based on the destinations shown on the trams as they arrive at the platform, and I don't think there are many such people. All it takes is one glance at the map to see that St. Werburgh's Road is the final stop on the purple line.
 
#19,650 ·
Can I just point out I spend pretty every weekend at my dads in Irlam yet until three years ago never knew where Chorlton was despite spending hours on my A-Z maps of Manchester.

Whole debate over place names is just that. Whatever try are called people get used to it and know direction based on that. You don't need to know where everything is just a general direction.
 
#19,652 ·
Very few people from Stockwell and Brixton have got any idea where Seven Sisters is, and the only knowledge they have of it is that some Victoria line trains terminate there........(and not Walthamstow)

St Werbergh's Rd might have been better named as South Chorlton.
The same can be said for many destinations; 'Elmers End' (Tramlink), Stanmore, Upminster etc etc
 
#19,657 ·
I'm really starting to wish that the destination display was something other than "St Werburgh's Road".

It's nonsense to expect residents of Shaw/Oldham/Rochdale, etc, to know of that totally insignificant residential street in south Manchester. I know that most of them will not be travelling beyond the city centre - so it is a moot point what it displays, be it Chorlton or whatever - but it nevertheless looks very, for want of a better term, naff.
Just to add to the replies already generated.

It looks....and sounds....a bit odd now, but "context is all", as the saying goes. The Chorlton line will eventually go further out and the ultimate destination will change. "St Werburgh's Road" doesn't look like the kind of place you'd have as a destination because, well, it's not a destination! As you and others have said, most people from Oldham will get off at Victoria or the middle of the city so the suitability question is tempered somewhat anyway.
 
#19,659 ·
Greater Manchester isn't quite yet one conurbation in terms of the way people use it and think if it. It's still a bunch of towns and boroughs thrown together with a communal hub.

I lived in South Manchester for years and don't think I went north of Victoria, except for one weird conference in Oldham. Whereas I've been across Tameside, Salford, Stockport and northernmost Cheshire.

Shaw & Crompton means nothing to me, they're hardly important places. Have driven the Moors roads once or twice to Hudds and it's all pretty grim round there anyway!

And the London tube examples show that indeed no-one needs to know anything about Upminster to understand that an Upminster train will take them to Tower Hill, for example.

I guess it's another aspect of having a decent, proper metro network which Manchester will get more used to.
 
#19,660 ·
Northbound:
at start - Shaw via City
approaching Deansgate - Shaw via Oldham
approaching Oldham - Shaw & Crompton

Southbound
at start - St Werburghs via City
at Victoria - St Werburghs Road
Except that Salford is also a city and they will get touchy about the line not going to their city. Add to that the fact that everyone in Manchester refers to the city centre as "Town" and you will end up with as much confusion a swith any othyer system.

The current names are clear and easily matched with the map so why worry?

Via City would have people thinking they were going to the Etihad Stadium.
 
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