Transport | Manchester's Roads and Motorways

[The Longford]

Originally Posted by Salif

It still needs developing further though, for instance I think they need to extend the M602 along the south side of Manchester city centre to meet the M67 and then extend that across the Sheffield following the path of the former Woodhead railway line (which should be re-opened imo btw). Build a triangle junction onto the M1 and you've also got an alternative Manchester-Leeds motorway aswell.

Way ahead of you there salif!

http://www.pathetic.org.uk/motorways/m67-2.shtml

[Farsight]

Fat fucking chance if they won't even give Manchester a southbound M56/M6 junction.

Longford: Environmentally sensitive my arse. It's got a fucking motorway through it. Warrington is built all over environmentally sensitive. And every house in Cheshire.

Listen up guys: if you can't fix the M56/M6 southbound junction, you're fucking dreaming about anything else.

[Liam-Manchester]

I thought about complaining to the Department of Transport last year about inconsistent road signs on the M6. For instance, you would expect Manchester to be signposted around the Lancaster area as it's only around 55-60 miles away. The ludicrous thing is that the first sign to Manchester heading southbound on the M6 also has Birmingham on it which is over well over 100 miles away at that point. Surely Manchester should be on the signs further north than it is. It's actually the same heading north on the M6, I've noticed the first sign to Manchester is 65 miles away or so. It should be signposted from Birmingham.

[Isaac Newell]

People who live in nice big houses tend not to allow motorways to be built anywhere near them.

Isn't that right Farsight.

[Farsight]

Well that's true, Isaac. As we all know, I live in a big house, so it's all my fault of course. But when it comes to the M56/M6 southbound, I'm only talking about one fucking slip road on one fucking motorway junction. Nobody in no big house is stopping that, smartarse. Apart from the twats in London who don't want Northern oiks clogging up their motorway. Hey Isaac, where do you live again?

[The Longford]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Longford: Environmentally sensitive my arse. It's got a fucking motorway through it. Warrington is built all over environmentally sensitive. And every house in Cheshire.

Perhaps my syntax is incorrect but if you re read my post before weighing in i said that the in my opinion the idea of the link is not environmentally insensitive ie i dont think there could be many environmental arguments against it (as far as i know no ancient woodlands, listed buildings, housing estates, great crested newts etc etc) especially if the current A556 is down graded and some land given back.
I know it is odd but we agree - so as the hilarious Michael Winner once said "Calm down dear".

[Isaac Newell]

One of the great things about London is that there's hardly any motorways. They'd spoil it to be honest. I live near the nnorth Circular which is a pretend motorway, near a load of houses that have been empty and boarded up for years blighted by the road. Great for the local crack trade though.

[Architecty]

Originally Posted by Farsight

As we all know, I live in a big house, so it's all my fault of course.

The legend of your ruddy big house is getting quite prolific, I’m sure I saw some graffiti about it round the northern quarter the other day. Any chance we could see a picture of it because its swelling out of all reasonable proportion in my head, need to be brought back to reality!

This sort of thing….

[The Longford]

Not far off - its more likely to look like this though:



am i right Farbanks?

[Martin G]

Forget about the ongoing M56/M6 Junction / A556 saga for a moment....my nomination for THE WORST EVER-DESIGNED MOTORWAY JUNCTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF MOTORWAY JUNCTIONS AROUND MANCHESTER go to the unholy trinity that you encounter at Stockport - Junctions 25, 26 and 27: otherwise known as the Bredbury-Portwood Death Stretch.

Junction 25 is a shambles - no doubt designed like that (as were several junctions around Gtr Manchester in the 70s/80s) to accommodate - and give priority to - the aborted A6(M) that was supposed to leave here and thread due south / southeastwards through yet more residential areas and areas of greenery (in this case the Goyt Valley). But as this road is no longer going to happen as originally planned, why couldn't they have realigned the dangerously curved M60 (formerly M63 flowing seamlessly onto the M66) which splits through it and indeed northbound gets joined by a slip road from this junction ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE IN THE OVERTAKING LANE and re-configured the entire intersection into just a large roundabout with north/south/west/east slips? As it stands, it is massively overengineered anyway (an impression not at all helped by the huge girder railway skewbridge which also spans it at this point.).

Secondly, as if this isn't bad enough, the slip roads to the A560 Crookilley Way are then duplicated (well, westbound at any rate) by that utterly atrocious "scissors" half-junction 26 - which lies only half a kilometer further west. What is the fucking point of this junction - which has been an accident blackspot ever since it was opened in 1989....other than providing yet another completely unnecessary exit in true Manchester Orbital tradition (the entire conurbation's network is second only to Glasgow's in terms of very numerous and closely spaced junctions) which only encourages more dangerous weaving of traffic movements [for this see also Junctions 2 and 3 near the M60/M56 Junction and also the entirety of the M60 western stretch from Junction 6 to junction 14.] anyway?

Surely they could have dispensed with this pair of pointless slips and made Junction 27 (the notorious Portwood Roundabout) a full access one in the same way that Junction 1 just over a mile further west is? Sometimes one can't help but get the impression that for all its complexity and comprehensiveness, the Manchester motorway system just has way too many junctions crammed together just for the sake of it.

On the same issue of slip road duplication - watch the space near the newly-opened Ashton-under-Lyne By-Pass. Junction 23 around this area already has a duplicated southern access slip road - one from the A635 and the other on the new distributor road just to the south west that feeds into this new Ashton Moss by-pass. The signs are it's going to get a pair of north-facing slips added to the by-pass (see the A-Z Geographer's maps as they're already marked on there as dotted lines) - thus making you wonder why they needed slips roads to serve the A635 anyway if all they were going to do was to have a new major route bypassing this stretch. All this is going to do is create yet MORE weaving from traffic joining from THREE main roads that cross over the M60 in this area. Unless they intend to close the slip roads that allow northbound access to the M60 from the A635 (and vice versa) and have them replaced by the new pair of slip roads just a fraction of the distance north [hardly likely].... That is just bad planning in my book.

[Martin G]

Originally Posted by Liam-Manchester

I thought about complaining to the Department of Transport last year about inconsistent road signs on the M6. For instance, you would expect Manchester to be signposted around the Lancaster area as it's only around 55-60 miles away. The ludicrous thing is that the first sign to Manchester heading southbound on the M6 also has Birmingham on it which is over well over 100 miles away at that point. Surely Manchester should be on the signs further north than it is. It's actually the same heading north on the M6, I've noticed the first sign to Manchester is 65 miles away or so. It should be signposted from Birmingham.

Funny you should mention Birmingham at this stage.... for, not content with having a rather crummy motorway system that's falling to bits (and the government aren't fucking interested in widening any of it, preferring to "traffic manage" on the cheap.), we also have the ludicrous situation where most of the junctions around the city only mention the four largest towns on the signage (in this case Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich and Dudley - even though two of them - Wolvo and Dudley - aren't anywhere near a motorway, both lying more than 3-4 miles away from the nearest junction) - and yet if you travel on the M6, M5 or M42 around the city, you will seldom see any signs for the towns that lie right on the motorways themselves - such as Halesowen, Oldbury, Willenhall, Coleshill, Castle Bromwich, Great Barr, Alvechurch, etc.... instead they are all lazily referred to as "Birmingham W, Birmingham NW, Birmingham NE, Birmingham SW, Birmingham SE..." etc... and it creates the false impression that Birmingham is such a huge sprawling place that they'd rather list its satellite towns as being parts of the city itself rather than place names in their own right...

In Manchester this does not happen - every town/district that lies near or on the motorways is given prominence on all the signage - be it a small village like Milnrow (Junc 21, M62), northern Manchester suburbs like Whitefield and Crumpsall (Junc 17, M60), or other outlying districts like Ashton-upon-Mersey (Junc 6, M60), Kearsley (Junc 16, M60), Worsley (Junc 13, M60), Failsworth / Hollinwood (Junc 21/22, M60) etc etc.... they NEVER get referred to on the signs as "Manchester W, Manchester NW, Manchester NE.." or whatever, do they?

[Farsight]

Yep, more like that Longshanks. But bigger. Wider.

Oops, you said insensitive? My utmost grovelling apologies.

[The Longford]

Originally Posted by Farsight

Yep, more like that Longshanks. But bigger. Wider.

Oops, you said insensitive? My utmost grovelling apologies.

Thats ok - i used a double negative (took me three goes to get my English O level) hence the confusion.

Re. motorway distance markers.
As i understand it there is a complicated and rather bonkers 'law' wherein unless the actual road on which you are travelling (ie the M6) is going to the destination then distances of over 80 miles are not to be shown. The only exception for this is London. So for example you are on the M62 you will not see a sign eg Birmingham 87 miles until you actually get on the M6.
The furthest distance i have seen is just south of Wigan where Birmingham is distanced at around 90 odd miles (someone correct me). This is a rarity. Manchester doesnt get distanced on the M6 until around Cannock if i'm not mistaken. You will not see Sheffield or Leeds distanced on the M1 until at least Leicester.
This doesnt apply in Scotland either apprently because just as you pass Gretna you see both Glasgow and Edinburgh distanced at around 99 miles.
The only reason i can think for this is to encourage drivers to break up their journeys and not think "Ah i can easily make that" - thats just a guess mind you.

[Isaac Newell]

[Monters]

Great thread. Was interested to read about the original plan for the M67, and especially how the A57 Hyde Road area was cleared to make way for the route, leaving it a bit of a wasteland today (I wouldn't say derelict, most of it is landscaped).

It's interesting that when they built Fort Ardwick they actually anticipated people being houses right next to a roaring motorway! Manchester has pulled down so much of its more interesting public housing, and interestingly it seems to have focused on pulling down the low to mid rise stuff. The opposite is true in London where many towers have gone but several low-rise mistakes remain, including the fortlike Andover Estate in Islington.

I never saw Hulme Crescents in the flesh but they must have been magnificent.

I still think that the M67 should be built out to Sheffield in full, AND that it ought to go into the centre of Manchester as originally planned.

[Liam-Manchester]

Originally Posted by The Longford

Thats ok - i used a double negative (took me three goes to get my English O level) hence the confusion.

Re. motorway distance markers.
As i understand it there is a complicated and rather bonkers 'law' wherein unless the actual road on which you are travelling (ie the M6) is going to the destination then distances of over 80 miles are not to be shown. The only exception for this is London. So for example you are on the M62 you will not see a sign eg Birmingham 87 miles until you actually get on the M6.
The furthest distance i have seen is just south of Wigan where Birmingham is distanced at around 90 odd miles (someone correct me). This is a rarity. Manchester doesnt get distanced on the M6 until around Cannock if i'm not mistaken. You will not see Sheffield or Leeds distanced on the M1 until at least Leicester.
This doesnt apply in Scotland either apprently because just as you pass Gretna you see both Glasgow and Edinburgh distanced at around 99 miles.
The only reason i can think for this is to encourage drivers to break up their journeys and not think "Ah i can easily make that" - thats just a guess mind you.

Yeah thanks for the information about the distances. You'd think that as the capital city and one of the most important cities in the world, London would be on the signs earlier than it is travelling south on the M6. You see the first London sign just north of Birmingham if I'm not mistaken, the furthest distance I've seen is 119 miles.
Interestingly, in the Leeds/Sheffield section of the M1 London is signposted regularly but isn't distanced. The distance for Nottingham is on the signs and London is at the top but doesn't have a distance. I find the the system of distancing rather bizarre in the UK. In the US you quite regularly see places distanced at over 200 miles- Miami is distance at around 280 in Northern Florida. I've also seen Los Angeles distanced at a massive 390 miles in Eastern California. If a lot of people are using the road to travel to a particular place, that place should be on the sign, regardless of whether the road goes directly there.

[Chogmook]

Thread for Manchester's comprehensive road and motorway network.



Please post about current/future development plans/news.

Drive safely!

[Chogmook]

I'll start:

New road plan for Trafford Centre

A new highway is being planned to ease congestion near to the Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester.

The road, which would run parallel with the M60 motorway and across the Manchester Ship Canal, has been proposed by developers Peel Holdings.

Trafford Council is due to hold a planning meeting next month to decide whether the road can be built.

The highway, which is projected to cost about £25m, would be delivered in stages over several years.

The Western Gateway Infrastructure Scheme (WGIS) near to Barton Bridge would segregate traffic between "through" and local movements.

The section of the M60 it would be built next to is one of the busiest sections of the motorway network, with about 140,000 vehicles using it each day.

The new canal crossing and local feeder roads would also open up access to the Trafford Bus Station at the Trafford Centre without the need to use the motorway, a spokesman for Peel Holdings said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/m...er/7852256.stm

Typical Peel.

After the TIF debarcle they better bloody deliver and fast.

[Potato Man]

What a bizarre story. Quite what this has to do with easing congestion and improving access to the Trafford Centre bus station I don't know. This is not a new scheme, it dates at least half a decade and its purpose is to open up land for development to the west of the M60, it's closely linked to the Port Salford, multi modal freight distribution hub.

The proposed route can be seen here. It's clearly a link road for a new industrial estate and to my mind that's no bad thing. In fact it should be applauded, particularly given todays harsh economic climate. I just wish the PR guys could call a spade a spade.

[heatonparkincakes]

Clearly roads are no where as exciting on here as say the latest 35 floor tower in town, but this should provide for interesting photo opportunities.

While we are here, a good old rumour/conspiracy theory in Tameside during the 90's was the idea that land was being cleared to make way for a dual carriageway from the Mancunian Way to the M67 at Denton Island.