without cars we can have thriving communities and yet people don't want that and when it comes down to it nobody wants to provide the sufficient infrastructure, this is an example of being absolutely lazy council and government needs an overhaul but what do I know that's never going to happen
The CGI looked decent. Reality is horrendously messy with street furniture everywhere. Quite a good summation of many of the issues with things like this. Can't help feeling there's similar areas around where I live, notably the bane of the motorist – pedestrianising a high street
you wouldn't believe that this is one of the largest cities in the UK with the state those streets are in, it's unpleasant and unsafe even for The North
1:09 vehicle thinking it's a bike to pass the No Entry and use the cycle lane one way contraflow.
But YES to all of this! The half arsed, disjointed, unconnected elements make it only useful if you were deciding to complete a whole cycle journey that was 100m long end to end.
The part in the NQ that irks me every time I pass: The contraflow Bus Lane on Dale and Church Streets is apparently open for use by taxis and cycles too. However not one junction allows a turning exemption to enter it (unless you're a bus, and even then only from Lever and Oldham Streets). Any taxi or bike on it airdrops in from the sky according to MCC.
I've had the same thoughts about this for ages. It goes to nowhere at either end and is still too car centric and too much tarmac. The current efforts for much of Manchester are half baked pandering to car drivers with the result that nobody benefits. They just need to bite the bullet and kick cars out of much of it. Market Street, St Annes Square and St Peters Square all seem to manage. Get some proper bus only routes in and out of the city centre at the same time and shave half an hour off most bus journeys. The change to the small section of Bridge Street alone took 15 minutes off. The same half arsed arguments about tradespeople, disabled people, people with kids are trotted out every time, if you look at the consultation documents for 2CC 10 years ago you see the same arguments about closing exchange square and some of cross street but somehow everything still exists there. I'd love to know how much of the current traffic on Deansgate every weekend is traders, disabled people and families that have spent money in shops and businesses along there and not just rich people in cars showing off or ubers full of drunk people that would just walk a bit further or catch a tram/bus to somewhere they could be picked up if it wasn't deansgate.
This should be an urban village.. the outside tables and chairs are encouraging but it looks hostile to people not traffic. Is active travel England to blame for guidance that promotes harshly engineered cycle segregation over beautiful public realm/traffic reduction policy? Or this just interim measures to test out an improvement scheme? Meanwhile it's still functioning like an industrial estate.
Ps there are really historic original metal kerbs on back streets like China Street. For protection from carts. Yet these aren't listed. Nor the block paving setts. Shame to loose features like that.
Ironically, it ain't too hard to make a parking garage beneficial to walkability while also being useful for parking. Over here in Huntsville, the parking garage on Clinton Avenue in downtown has a bunch of storefronts facing the street on the lowest level, all of the parking is above.
I don’t understand these city centres that have multi-storey car parks all over the place. The first time I visited Sheffield it gave me a big headache. It’s a shame more cities can’t follow Leicester and Leeds’ example, which is have the biggest car park on the ring road.
The thing that gets me is I feel there must be some compromise between painted on cycle lanes and the massively over designed and expensive looking cycle lanes with ridiculous angular turns. Motorists hate the "invisible" (they're perfectly visible if driving with due care and attention) bumps used on the B5136 through New Ferry. But they do at least seem to offer cyclists some protection.
If a road can be pedestrianised or turned into a shared street that would probably be better than trying to squeeze in awkward cycle infrastructure.
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without cars we can have thriving communities and yet people don't want that and when it comes down to it nobody wants to provide the sufficient infrastructure, this is an example of being absolutely lazy council and government needs an overhaul but what do I know that's never going to happen
I think that you need to drive the M62 and have a look at the daft things that have been done in Leeds.
The CGI looked decent. Reality is horrendously messy with street furniture everywhere. Quite a good summation of many of the issues with things like this. Can't help feeling there's similar areas around where I live, notably the bane of the motorist – pedestrianising a high street
you wouldn't believe that this is one of the largest cities in the UK with the state those streets are in, it's unpleasant and unsafe even for The North
1:09 vehicle thinking it's a bike to pass the No Entry and use the cycle lane one way contraflow.
But YES to all of this! The half arsed, disjointed, unconnected elements make it only useful if you were deciding to complete a whole cycle journey that was 100m long end to end.
The part in the NQ that irks me every time I pass: The contraflow Bus Lane on Dale and Church Streets is apparently open for use by taxis and cycles too. However not one junction allows a turning exemption to enter it (unless you're a bus, and even then only from Lever and Oldham Streets).
Any taxi or bike on it airdrops in from the sky according to MCC.
I've had the same thoughts about this for ages. It goes to nowhere at either end and is still too car centric and too much tarmac. The current efforts for much of Manchester are half baked pandering to car drivers with the result that nobody benefits. They just need to bite the bullet and kick cars out of much of it. Market Street, St Annes Square and St Peters Square all seem to manage. Get some proper bus only routes in and out of the city centre at the same time and shave half an hour off most bus journeys. The change to the small section of Bridge Street alone took 15 minutes off. The same half arsed arguments about tradespeople, disabled people, people with kids are trotted out every time, if you look at the consultation documents for 2CC 10 years ago you see the same arguments about closing exchange square and some of cross street but somehow everything still exists there. I'd love to know how much of the current traffic on Deansgate every weekend is traders, disabled people and families that have spent money in shops and businesses along there and not just rich people in cars showing off or ubers full of drunk people that would just walk a bit further or catch a tram/bus to somewhere they could be picked up if it wasn't deansgate.
This should be an urban village.. the outside tables and chairs are encouraging but it looks hostile to people not traffic. Is active travel England to blame for guidance that promotes harshly engineered cycle segregation over beautiful public realm/traffic reduction policy? Or this just interim measures to test out an improvement scheme? Meanwhile it's still functioning like an industrial estate.
Ps there are really historic original metal kerbs on back streets like China Street. For protection from carts. Yet these aren't listed. Nor the block paving setts. Shame to loose features like that.
And people wonder why cyclists almost never use cycle lanes.
Aren't there long term goals to remove through traffic from the city centre?
If that went ahead, would that make this route actually work?
Ironically, it ain't too hard to make a parking garage beneficial to walkability while also being useful for parking. Over here in Huntsville, the parking garage on Clinton Avenue in downtown has a bunch of storefronts facing the street on the lowest level, all of the parking is above.
About the multi-storey never being full… would you park there? There we go.
Thanks for highlighting these issues! It's good to see you going to places regularly which I use as a cyclist regularly.
I don’t understand these city centres that have multi-storey car parks all over the place. The first time I visited Sheffield it gave me a big headache. It’s a shame more cities can’t follow Leicester and Leeds’ example, which is have the biggest car park on the ring road.
The thing that gets me is I feel there must be some compromise between painted on cycle lanes and the massively over designed and expensive looking cycle lanes with ridiculous angular turns. Motorists hate the "invisible" (they're perfectly visible if driving with due care and attention) bumps used on the B5136 through New Ferry. But they do at least seem to offer cyclists some protection.
If a road can be pedestrianised or turned into a shared street that would probably be better than trying to squeeze in awkward cycle infrastructure.
4:13 there's a lowered curb about 4 metres behind you, surely wheelchair users can cross the bike path using that??
CGI looks lovely but feels like the got an Temu version of it. Great video Bryn
Love the Patron link. I like the idea of residential parking only in the done up multi storey and the rest be for pedestrians.
Sorry, don't know the area, but understand what you are saying.
And am frustrated.
I wish the whole area was properly pedestrianised with cycle lanes that linked the area to the rest of the city. Instead it's a lot of half-assery