There is quite a bit of cycle facilities work being done by Manchester city council at the moment. Mostly green and white paint, such as repainting on Wilmslow Rd using green blobs so thick that they create little cycle speed bumps along with new ASLs & square patches on Ashton Old Rd. Nothing particularly exciting. But on Grosvenor Street and Hyde Rd they are putting in a segregated contraflow and a dropped kerb roundabout bypass respectively. Neither are groundbreaking, but the Grosvenor street contraflow in particular is interesting because it reduces the space for motorised traffic a bit. I don't know the details of it as the consultation period passed me by and the pdfs have now been removed from the council website. But you can get an idea from the photos. It'll be a kerbed lane of somesort with Toucan crossings at the end to access the existing painted contraflow further on.
Personally, the kerbs look too nicey nicey to me and the lane too thin, but since I haven't seen the plans I'll wait til its done to pass judgement.
The Alternative route from Hyde Rd to avoid the Ardwick Green roundabout is supposed to be still in consultation, but they appear to have started anyway. In my opinion the dropped kerbs are too short, but arguably this will mean bikes can't join the footway too fast, which is in the best interest of pedestrians. So it's swings and roundabouts really. You can have a look at the route for this still on the council website. Not great but a nice alternative for anyone not prepared to negotiate a big roundabout.
On a side note - where the current cycle lane vanishes into a bus stop is a very dangerous spot (exactly where you see the girl on a bike in the photo). Because it guides you into a space that rapidly disappears, meaning you have to rejoin a fast moving lane of traffic. It's always been best to try and completely ignore this bit of lane and not get yourself stuck in the bus stop area.
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| one of three dropped kerbs put in already. |
Grosvenor Street is an interesting one, as it condifies what some cyclists seem to do (currently illegally) anyway.
ReplyDeleteThe proof of the pudding will, I suppose, be in whether the drivers bother to look for cyclists approaching from that unexpected direction, and how the junction is handled. Worth keeping an eye on though, that's a handy route for many of us.
From what I remember from the original consultation there were supposed to be protected lanes on both sides of the road eventually, with the entrances to side roads narrowed to slow turning traffic down too.
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