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news
City Tower, ManchesterManchester's Curry Mile still city's cycling blackspot despite safety plans
Two and a half years after a Manchester firm of personal injury solicitors identified the Curry Mile on Wilmslow Road as the city's most dangerous stretch of road for bike riders, Manchester cyclists are angry that safety improvements not been implemented.
The Manchester Evening News reports that data obtained from the police underFreedom of Information Laws reveals the road still has the city's highest number of collisions involving cyclists.
Plans to introduce bike lanes and cycling-specific traffic signals have been on Manchester council's to-do list since April 2013, but those who ride in the area say they have still not been implemented. Some fear they may be quietly dropped.
Tim Blackwell, who cycles to work everyday along the Curry mile, told the paper: “Many people avoid cycling on the main road because they don’t feel safe. The current road design means you’re placing your safety in the hands of others including motorists who aren’t always aware and considerate.
“The statistics show the junction of Wilmslow Road and Wilbraham Road could be made safer, but the council have done little to improve this with their recent changes at this junction.”
The council says the delay has been caused by the need for further study of the effectiveness of the plans.
A spokesperson for Manchester council said: “We had planned to introduce new traffic signals, which would have included a dedicated light allowing cyclists to set off and turn before cars were released, at the junction for a trial period.
"However, an independent expert raised concerns that motorists driving across this incredibly busy junction may have misread the new signals, potentially leading to more collisions with cyclists.
“We decided a more suitable trial site should be considered, and we are currently working with members of cycling groups to look for more appropriate locations elsewhere on Wilmslow Road.”
The council might be right to be cautious. Traffic lights intended to make London's notorious Bow roundabout safer for cyclists have been criticised as insufficient and did not prevent cyclist Venera Minakhmetova being run over and killed by a left-turning lorry on November 13 2013.
In comments on the MEN's story, Tim Blackwell points out that the plan for the junction of Wilbraham and Wilmslow Roads was criticised by Dutch cycling expert Mark Wagenbuur who wrote an article explaining the planned changes weren't up to Dutch standards.
Blackwell added: "Regarding the curry mile, the statistics should be viewed in context. It's one of the busiest cycle routes in Manchester, so it's less surprising that there are more accidents there. But there isn't room for all the parking, buses and bikes, so riding down it really does feel like running the gauntlet. It's enough to put most people off. The fact that so many people ride there anyway should be a sign that there's a demand for cycling and it needs better facilities. Otherwise it's the weak link in the Oxford Road chain."
However, it's not all bad news. Cycling collisions have reduced in Manchester in recent years. There were 801 in 2011, 642 in 2012 and 583 in 2013.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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37 comments
At least you've started to think about the issue in a way which incorporates the idea that what is best for cyclists may not be best for everyone, which is what I'm getting at.
But I don't see why you think that is the important issue.
At the moment the status quo embodies the ideas of the extremists on the other side, the people who think that what is best for motorists is best for everyone, and who just make an unthinking assumption that 'more cars/parking = economic benefit', while failing to consider the bigger picture.
Those extremists actually have power.
I don't see why you think its more important to criticise the powerless extremists on one side, who just post things online to express their frustration, rather than the extremists who currently set the agenda and whose extremism is actually _real_.
Dead cyclists are very expensive and messy to clean up. Need less to say that they stop paying taxes too, feckless b'stards.
And what exactly are these 'cultural sensitivities' that are stopping the council enforcing proper traffic regulations?
I'm sure it's not just cyclists, but that doesn't mean cyclists should do it.
No, I don't have evidence, but any attempts to change the status quo would need to address the issue; something that knee jerk reaction from cyclists seems to ignore.
My point is that thinking about cycling without thinking about the wider picture is an attitude we often associate with car drivers; make it easier for me to cycle/drive and ignore the needs of other users...
There's plenty of parking available in the vicinity, moving parking off the main road or restricting it at peak times would not only reduce hazards but improve traffic flow for everyone, not just cyclists.
Equally, one could take issue with making a knee-jerk assumption that more parking=more economic activity, that doesn't think about the wider picture...
If you'd presented evidence and argument to demonstrate that a reduction in parking would lead to an economic loss in this case (I'm not familiar with the area) that would be another matter, that would be the start of a debate, but your response seemed itself to be an unthinking one.
In order to 'address the issue' someone has to actually raise the possibility that the 'status quo' might not be the best arrangement possible and to ask questions about an alternative. It seems to me that unless an alternative is pushed by someone and not just abandoned with a bit of hand-waving about parking and economic impact, no issue is going to get addressed.
edit - making the whole area no parking for any purpose is obviously the extreme end of a continuum, but with any kind of argument you will have some at extreme ends (then you water down the demands to what you really wanted in the first place and call it a compromise!).
See, there's your typical cyclist, thinking in a bubble...
It's an economically active area, and cyclists are at best just passing through it. Why would the council take steps that will reduce economic activity so a small number of cyclists can take the direct route to the university and the city centre?
You need to be realistic and think about cycling as part of the wider economy, as part of society rather than see cyclists as something apart from it.
Where I live the main consideration of the council seems to be to allow motorists from elsewhere to pass through it as quickly as possible, regardless of what the local community want. So maybe its not just 'typical cyclists' who think in bubbles?
Furthermore, I presume you have some conclusive evidence that reducing parking would 'reduce economic activity', as you wish to rule it out immediately?
Can we see it?
Ride along it every day – the double parking, blocking of the cycle lane and general bad driving is notably worse than elsewhere on the ride from Didsbury into the City Centre. I think the number of buses stopping and cars going into and coming out of spots makes adds to the problems.
The way the cycle lane (where it's still visible) weaves around to accommodate bus stops and car parking bays makes things worse. I realise it would effect business but it might be time to make the whole stretch no parking, or at least blitz it with traffic wardens.
Hmm, The hospital section is closed north bound. I am sensing there might be a segment starting at Hathersage road very soon. Whilst we are talking south manchester I spot a lot of GBs around Fallowfield Sainsburys and a genuine Sky boy in Northenden.
I am in Didsbury off Barlow Moor Road and go up through Chorlton to get to the City. Safer and quicker than 42 Corridor or Princess Park Way (PPway!) Please please please one day re surface palatine road from Withington down, no bus ruts, no endless patchwork. And the lights at Lapwing lane are NEVER on green. I will eventually get the KOM down there by riding the HS2 under it in 16 years time. That will be quicker than waiting for them to fix the road.
Ah right, I'm just off Grangethorpe Drive. Ever felt like you're in a minority when every other rider you see is in GB kit going to/from the velodrome?!
Some mornings yes! I quite like clinging on the back of the group when I get the chance, although I once misjudged a set of lights and edged ahead of Dani King one morning and instantly thought "I'm going to pay for that" and sure enough when they did change I was left for dead!
She probably wasn't even trying.
Who's the girl with dark hair, always in plain bright blue shorts, that's always hunched over the hoods giving it berries on the A34 every morning? I saw her recently in a UCI Rainbow jersey. I was jealous, but never see her for long enough to recognise.
I believe the academy has a house or two in Fallowfield, it must be like a student house without the partying. I use Palatine rd southbound to get to the meeting point for the club run, it's horrific!
If ever there is an area where you daren't wear sky or team GB kit without earning it, Manchester is it.
I'd like to agree that the police don't go there because of cultural insensitivities, but I'm afraid it's a common complain in every area. They simply don't enforce traffic laws at all. I had to video a police officer the other week to make them fine someone for parking on zigzags. If I hadn't stood there and videoed them they were just going to 'have a word'.
GMP don't care, and won't care until someone makes them do something, there have been several fatalities in Hulme (where I live recently), yet nothing has been done to deal dangerous driving.
That's not me, I'm afraid. I'm on the Kingsway, near to Fog Lane.
A mere stumble from the Sun in September, if you cut through the back way past the taxi rank!
Curry Mile is a perfect storm of too-narrow road, loads of deliveries to small businesses, busiest bus route in Europe, preening rude-boys in status motors, taxis & minicabs galore, a fair number of incompetent cyclists (fast and slow) and of course, pedestrians who have a cross-first-look-later approach to the Green Cross Code.
It's no surprise it's a blackspot. A mate got knocked flying (broken shoulder and ribs, nasty facial injuries) a few months back by a guy on his phone - uninsured, natch.
I try to avoid via on the Yew Tree Road route - even though I got nastily SMIDSY-ed there back in February.
I'm very much a convert to segregation these days. Just get me away from the bloody cars!
The infrastructure in terms of road and junction layouts is pretty bad. But by no means amazingly bad. The real killer on Wilmslow Road and Oxford Road is the astoundingly incompetent and aggressive driving.
Put a couple of plain clothes coppers on bikes with bad attitudes and handful of cameras (handlebar, rear, discreetly on head) up and down that road every day, you'll have the problem solved in a couple of months. Probably the national debt as well.
I opt for Princess Road. A dual carriageway with trucks thundering past 2-3 feet from my right elbow and a thoroughly evil and fast roundabout at the top end. It's safer. A lot quicker too.
As well as bad driving there is a significant minority of unlicenced drivers around there who the police actively avoid policing due to accusations of racism. All the on street parking needs removing from Wilmslow Road and actively enforced but it just won't happen.
But, again. Upper Brook Street is not only fine for cycling on, but is now even smoother than it was. No amount of money from whatever cause is going to stop a few idiots being idiots.
I last rode there last week and it wasn't great at all, and closed northbound, they must have got plenty of work done in the past week. However, the point is that route is going to get stupidly busy once Oxford Road shuts and a lot the traffic shifts across.
When does that happen? Living just off the A34 in Burnage, it sounds like the increase in traffic would be very local to me.
I think it was supposed to be finished last year, but I'd imagine it wont kick in before the middle of next year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-22538097
We probably live round the corner from each other by the way.
Ha! You're not one of the lads on Burnage lane that go out in Manchester Wheelers jerseys are you?
'The reason Upper brook street is being resurfaced is not to benefit cyclists, it's to compensate for the re designation of Oxford road as bus/taxi/cycle only.'
That's totally irrelevant of course. The fact is that it is being resurfaced, no matter what the reason.
It's not totally irrelevant though, once Oxford Rd has had twenty odd million pounds spunked on it under the pretense it's "for cyclists" then it's no great leap that motorists using Upper Brook street will be resentful of cyclists using "their road".
Nobody is going to care that the cycling provisions are a complete bag of shite that put cyclists in danger and in conflict with other road users and that everything is being designed purely for the benefit of the bus companies despite being paid for by cycling money.
The reason Upper brook street is being resurfaced is not to benefit cyclists, it's to compensate for the re designation of Oxford road as bus/taxi/cycle only.
In the planning meeting the biggest groan was for the council insistence that they can't install cycle lanes without ensuring that the cars are provided with additional capacity on an alternative route (Upper brook street). Despite all the evidence that as long as the capacity exists there will be just as many cars.
It seems to me that no one from Manchester council has bothered to visit a good example (Copenhagen, Berlin et cetera), instead preferring to invent their own ideas and show horn them in. Perhaps road.cc could provide an on-line chat with a rep in the same way mumsnet often do with minor celebrities.
I commute from North Manchester so cant comment on the "curry mile" apart from that I have just looked on google maps and it looks very similar to my commute home past Strangeways. Bury New road is a nightmare as you are coming out of Manchester due to the constantly illegally parked cars, trucks, vans, people pulling out of side streets without looking, people on mobile phones and pedestrians stepping out into the street. My alternatives which I have tried are no better. Cheetham hill even worse. Through Broughton not much better.
Never ever in my 4 years of commuting to Manchester have a I seen the police down there doing anything about it! Why is that?
On a separate point I've been lobbying Bury council for the last year to do something about the illegally parked cars in cycle lanes along Manchester Road, Bury. Its f***ing painful. the wheels move so slowly in the mean time people's lives are put at risk. The fact of the matter is, they don't give a s**t! I think we all need to realise that's nothing is going to change as the car is king and as long as people are in them and traffic is crawling along then the council aren't going to make any big changes. If we start getting some 'Falling Down' moments and the majority of people actually want change then they will wake from their slumber and actually do their jobs. In the mean time they land at their desks every morning just to push some more bits of paper from one department to another.
They are indeed similar, although Rusholme is more intense somehow.
Fact check: There are alternate routes for students but only a couple of North/South through roads. I recommend Yew Tree/Lloyd St. past the old Maine Road.
Upper Brook is quite wide behind the University, but for the most part past the Hospital it is barely a single lane with parked cars; Panama Canal it is not.
The Curry Mile is not one mile long, but it is locally know as that, and it is more than half a mile long providing over a mile of shop frontage.
I do avoid the area out of experience but many students will stick to the 42 corridor they know, I used to for years.
I have seen no new cycling infrastructure in South Manchester despite promises of money, though these projects are probably parceled out over years. Upper Brook is indeed the biggest bit of resurfacing work I have seen in a couple of years.
The up and down, in and out, around a tree, past a lampost, railings, over a curb, around the outside of a busstop cycle lanes in Fallowfield are a nightmare. Young people have died at these location and nothing changes. I cycle straight down the middle of the lanes, not everyone feels they can do this.
Utopia is always on the way.
LOVING the indiscriminate use OF CAPS to emphasise JUST how much we SEEM to be GOING over the TOP!!!1111!!1!!11!11
Especially because there are about 100 alternative routes apart from riding straight through the MURDER mile of MANCHESTER...
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