Graham reports back from Friends of Scholes Park meeting
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by Lib Dem team on 21 June, 2018
As we’ve reported, the Council is consulting on transport infrastructure plans for the next twenty years, including proposals for the Kingsway junction, new stations and a rapid bus route along the A34.
We’ve listened to your comments, discussed our view and come up with our submission below. Your views are probably different to ours, so please do make sure you have your say too.
The Liberal Democrat councillors for Cheadle and Gatley are pleased that, after several false starts and delays, the long-promised work to tackle transport issues in our area is finally underway.
Our roads are already over-capacity. Our train services are creaking at the seams. Bus services get poorer every month and there is woeful under-provision to encourage more people to cycle or walk. We have no tram service into Stockport borough, and links to East Didsbury Metrolink are getting worse, not better (for example, there is now just one train an hour from Gatley to East Didsbury).
Add onto that the new homes Cheshire East plan to build around Handforth Dean and other nearby areas, the Green Belt release Stockport has identified for housing around Cheadle Hulme, Heald Green and Woodford, and the new retail proposed for Handforth Dean, and the situation looks dire.
We recognise that the proposals are early ones at the moment, rather than detailed plans fixed in stone. We urge that more detailed plans be brought forward for consideration as quickly as possible, or the growth in traffic will run too far ahead of the improvements.
Kingsway junction
We recognise the proposal of a roundabout as being one possible solution, and we can see that it does solve some of the problems. However, we have a number of questions and would like other options to be properly evaluated (e.g. double right-filter running concurrently, underpass, overpass).
The Kingsway Junction should be considered as part of a large zone linking the Cheadle Royal roundabout, which if anything is worse than the Kingsway/Cheadle/Gatley Junction.
It is interesting that Cheadle Royal is worse given that, a) it is already a roundabout and b) it already has the underpass ostensibly for the largest volumes of traffic using this site and it is still more congested at peak times than Kingsway Junction! I would suggest this does not augur well for a roundabout at Kingsway.
Similarly, the problems continue on up the A34 towards Manchester where bottlenecks are commonplace at East Didsbury and beyond. Overall the problems may need a more radical solution.
Our questions at this stage are:
Train stations
We support new rail stations (for train or tram/train) at Cheadle – which we have long campaigned for – and Stanley Green.
While we are disappointed with the slow progress of the tram/train pilot in Sheffield, we recognise the importance of creating an orbital tram route from Stockport (and further east) to Manchester Airport and the planned Airport City. Conversion of the current railway line from Stockport to Altrincham to tram/train use provides a mechanism for linking into the existing tram line to the airport. The establishment of a railway station for Cheadle is the key initial step in the longer-term plan.
Buses
We support the principle of a Rapid Bus Service running alongside the A34. Having seen the success of the Leigh-Wigan-Manchester guided bus route, this has the potential to be a good solution to get people from existing and new homes into Manchester without more cars on our roads. Given the high pollution levels along the A34 corridor, we would hope all new buses would be fully electric.
We look forward to seeing more detail on this scheme
Trams & trains
We support improvements in the rail services to Stockport in line with the 2015 rail strategy.
The reduction in services exacerbated by inability to run the newly reduced schedule services simply fliess in the face of any logical approach to managed movements in this corner of Greater Manchester. We must see a planned return, as a minimum, to the regular schedule services of only last year.
Cheadle is an area with major employers, many commuters and limited public transport. Plans need to encourage short term improvements such as a shuttle bus service to tram and train stations at Parrs Wood/East Didsbury and Cheadle Hulme to alleviate road traffic congestion.
Cycling and walking
We must greatly improve provision for cycling and walking, making them – where possible – quick, easy, safe and stress-free options for local journeys and shorter commutes. We support the GM Made to Move strategy.
20 Comments
Creaking at the seams? Way to mash two metaphors together to create incoherent nonsense. One hopes you write better when doing your actual jobs…
Hi Ben – “creaking at the seams” is a commonly used phrase and I think pretty much everyone understands what it means.
Hi Iain
Regarding the roadworkds on the A34 approaching the Stanley Green roundabout. Who is accountable for the lane closures ?
I’m all for protecting the workforce but restrictions and lane closures when there is no workforce is unjustifiable and yet we see evidence of it time and time again.
Latest example, Sunday 17 June 2018. Along with many hundreds of other infuriated motorists, queued from the roundabout at Schools Hill as far as the Stanley Green roundabout where the south bound approach was restricted to a single lane. Why ? No-one working. No-one to keep safe. Just 30 minutes of peoples’ lives never to be returned for the sake of what ?
Who makes these decisions and what steps are available to the general public to question when they are completely unnecessary ? They need to be held accountable for their flawed decisions.
I completely agree with the idea of a double right-filter (running concurrently) for the A34-Gatley junction, and have been arguing for this for many years.
It would be a cheap, yet effective solution. Anyone who attempts to use that junction (travelling east-west) especially during rush hours must despair when faced with long queues waiting to turn right and therefore holding up all traffic wishing to go straight on or turn left.
The only reason I can imagine that the traffic lights cannot include a right turn filter (even for a few seconds) is the claim by the Highways Agency that those few seconds would hold up motorway traffic waiting to join the A34. However, I should like to see some proof of that assertion.
I support the questions you have asked. I think when questioning the congestion of the a34 Cheadle royal roundabout you haven’t explained that half of this congestion is caused by the Kingsway lights at peak times. No by the fact it’s a round about.
I also want to see re-defining the lines and system the Cheadle royal roundabout works. To many times congestion is caused by motorists not adhering to the rules of the roundabout and the faded lines don’t help this.
Also roundabout or not the other half of the congestion is caused further up by healdgreen lights at the Griffin now not being able to cope with the amount of traffic passing through up to handforth to avoid a34 roadworks.
I like the idea of an overpass at Kingsway lights. Although costly this would be a longer term fix where as a roundabout is short sighted.
Can I ask when is completion date for a34 Stanley green roundabout works as that has been going on for a long time?
Thanks
Hi Sam – as far as we know, the new relief road, including that roundabout, is due to be completed in the Autumn – a year later than originally planned. If we get an update on that timescale, we’ll let you know.
We shouldn’t have been starting from here. The old system – before the lights were installed on the A34 just south of the motorway – worked pretty well. Drivers coming from Cheadle trying to turn N onto the A34 understood they could do so when a car coming the other way was turning L. The new system introduced three lanes on the Gatley side and prevented this happening.
If the object was to reduce queuing traffic by having another lane on the W side it failed miserably. That’s because the third lane can only store half a dozen vehicles at the best of times, and often fewer than that because cars heading E block access to the LH lane.
All this cost a huge amount of money and made things worse for traffic coming from Cheadle and hoping to turn N. The only beneficiaries were local (Lib Dem) councillors, who were able to look busy, having their picture taken holding clipboards, whilst planning how to make an unsatisfactory situation worse.
Face it, Iain. Traffic flows are imponderables. No-one knows what’s going to fix the Kingsway lights. As you point out, the John Lewis roundabout isn’t great (although – counterfactual – if it weren’t a roundabout it might be even worse).
I’m reminded of the ludicrous attempt to “fix” the Manchester Road by having a cycle path reduce the width of the roadway by 30%. The result? Cyclists still use the road, and traffic backs up behind them because now there isn’t room to overtake.
Politicians – and personally I think Iain is one of the better sort – are beset by a pathology. They think they can always make things better. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that perhaps they can’t. Not always. Personally I’d much rather see money spent on local policing than sunk into – yet another – white elephant traffic scheme whose consequences cannot be known even now, and whose traffic context will in any event have changed by the time it is built.
As always Iain you never mention the elephant in the room that your party sanctioned – namely authorising all those homes on the Barnes site which is happening NOW, and all the extra traffic that this site will generate.
We mention those homes repeatedly, Bruce. We need to build more homes in our area – the Government has made very clear that councils either get them built, or developers will be able to build wherever they want.
Our jobs is not to deny our children and grandchildren homes to live in, and deny our area the economic growth it needs, but to figure out how we can build the homes we need along with the infrastructure to support them.
150 homes north of the Kingsway junction is far less of a problem than several thousand homes south of the junction.
We need to bring in a congestion charge with the highest charge being on the Cheshire East border.
Ian
I note you say this after you have been elected
As stated in the past you work for Stockport not the residence of Cheadle
Hi Alan,
I have always said that we need new homes, but we also need them in the right places with the infrastructure to cope with them.
You may disagree with me – fair enough – but it shouldn’t come as any surprise if you’ve read what I’ve said about housing in the past.
Ian,
I agree with your questions.
However, I think that the double right turn should be immediately trialled.
Even if it isn’t seen as the long term solution, I have no doubt it will provide some relief while the endless talking and planning goes on.
Are there any valid arguments, backed by data, against it?
I totally agree with Vin and everyone else who says we should trial right turns in both directions.
It can’t make things any worse than they are now.
Agree with all this Iain, you’re right to mention costs, but this government has repeatedly shown that, for the right area (London) money is no object. A change of government in 2 years time would undoubtedly see a greater flow of money northwards.
Everyone acknowledges that traffic flow will increase massively year by year. Too many believe that dealing with obvious junction troubles will suffice! That includes planners who are limited by politics to speak freely about the rational answers. If an area of the country including all sources and destinations is already under severe strain then it is much more than junction patches that are necessary. The A34 traffic will continue to zoom and the only sensible answer is to provide alternative routes from sources to destinations (not including the increasing use of housing estates cut throughs – already far too much used).
I generally agree with many of the points raised by the Lib Dems in their response – short term answers like left and right East/West filter lanes at the Gatley junction, exploring the possibility of an island there, then the more costly answers of a new rail/tram station and a dedicated bus corridor along the A34.
But the basic problem can’t ever be solved without less traffic, and reducing the problem of traffic peaking during the morning and evening.
I’ve noticed easier traffic when schools are on holiday, as this appears to reduce traffic numbers.
This got me thinking about essentially cost-free answers to possibly help reduce traffic flows at peak times.
What about local companies and even schools and colleges being persuaded to stagger their start and finishing times?
And drivers being persuaded to car share?
This is behavioural change, and could be enhanced by employers being able to access government funding to encourage them to stagger work times if they don’t already; reward bus and bike use and car sharing. Oh yes – and homeworking.
I just saw a pig fly by. Which gives me another idea – jet-powered backpacks, anyone? (without a flying tax!)
A bus service from Gatley to East Didsbury tram would be good now that our train service to Manchester is ruined.
Iain, if you’re still reading these replies – is there any plan for a fully segregated cycle route all the way along the A34? If a bus route is going in, it seems the right time to do it. It’s wide enough to have a 2-way cycleway right along it from Manchester to Cheadle/Gatley and beyond.
The only way to reduce congestion is to remove the cause of it – too many motor vehicles. So, spend money on really good public transport (this is getting worse, not better) and cycle infrastructure. If/when there is a safe, stress-free way to cycle (the whole way) from our homes to our final destination people will use it. See London for how successful it is – they’ve managed to improve road capacity there by huge numbers, where they’ve built them (I saw children, elderly people and disabled people in the 15 minutes I was on a cycle superhighway – none of whom are supported to cycle any distance at the moment).
There are numerous studies about induced demand – build more roads and you just induce more motor vehicle traffic in time. The money needs to go elsewhere.
We badly need a shuttle bus to East Didsbury from Cheadle and beyond, simultaneous right filters at the Kingsway lights and significant improvements to all public transport routes south of the Manchester boundary..
If cross department analyses were completed, it would be seen that there would be savings from reductions in pollution, resulting health and environmental benefits.
Improvements are needed now as well as long term developments.