Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has defended plans for a new segregated cycle path on the A56 — already victim to multiple bouts of attacks by vandals stealing the cones, now described as a “systematic theft” — saying that we can’t live in a world where “drivers dominate” and cars “have got all the road”.
Appearing on the BBC Radio Manchester show In the Hotseat, host Mike Sweeney read out a question to the mayor from a resident: “Andy’s invested a lot of time into the Bee Network, which relies on the buses being on time and reliable.
“So, what does he think of Trafford Council’s plans to install permanent cycle lanes across the A56 from Sale to Stretford which will cause congestion at all times, and major congestion at peak times, and when cricket or football is on?”
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The mayor responded, saying: “The first thing to say is that the Bee Network won’t be in Trafford until early 2025, this is just preparatory at this stage, we’ve already got the Bee Network in the west of Greater Manchester at the moment but it is heading towards Trafford.
“What I would say is, we’ve got to get to a position where we create space for all road users. People raise concerns about people on e-bikes or on e-scooters potentially posing a risk to pedestrians, so we’ve got to create segregated space for them.
“We’ve got to create more bus lanes to make the Bee Network work better. So, the world where drivers dominate and cars have got all the road – we just can’t be in that world anymore because life is changing. We need to encourage more people on to public transport.
“The Bee Network will work because of some of those bus priority measures that we’re going to put in place.”
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Host Mike Sweeney then commented that the A56 is of a “finite width” and asked the mayor if he would be able to fit a cycle lane and bus lane on the A56, while retaining room for drivers.
The mayor added: “It depends where, doesn’t it? I’d have to look at the precise design that the Trafford Council are considering because the A56 can get very wide, actually, in certain parts of it.
“If you get towards the Stretford side of it, you’re talking four lanes aren’t you, at least on one side of the carriageway. It depends on how it’s done and where it’s done, but should it be done? Yes. We’ve got to create safe space for all road users.”
Police data from 2019 showed the A56 was the most dangerous route for cyclists, with 67 incidents on the road between 2015 and 2017.
Plans to improve the layout of temporary cycle infrastructure on the section of the route, termed “Phase 2”, in Stretford were consulted on earlier this year.
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Temporary cycle lanes were installed on Chester Road and Edge Lane in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 using traffic cones, sparking anger from some road users, with the cones getting stolen, leading to a police investigation.
The anger outburst came to heads this year when Mancunian cyclists called out the bike lane vandalism, as photos shared on social media showed the A56 in Trafford reopened to three lanes again, the lane that was a dedicated cycle lane, formerly separated from traffic with cones, once again filled with queueing vehicles, and the removed cones stacked at the side of the road.
Hi @OneTrafford. This is what happens when you don’t keep on top of minor vandalism. Now large sections of the cycleway are missing and we have three lanes of queuing traffic instead of two @StretfordJane @LongfordSarah1 @mik pic.twitter.com/mVlnPAzIJU
— JBizzle (@jbizzleymcbizzl) July 3, 2023
“Is this how we do democracy in Trafford?” one local cyclist asked. “Why is this being allowed to happen? We have been complaining for weeks about cones being removed and now large sections are missing. Maybe I should go back to driving.”
Another said they had now raised an official complaint against Trafford Council as the “complete silence” on the matter is “very frustrating”.
Speaking to WalkRideAlty, a campaign group hoping “to make Altrincham, Timperley and Broadheath better places to walk and ride” road.cc was told the council is “painfully slow” at dealing with such instances.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “It seems as if the outsourced service provider Amey (‘One Trafford’) are struggling to keep up with vigilantes who are removing and stealing the temporary road cones from the A56 through Stretford. There are a series of tweeted photos of sections going missing overnight, and complaints that they’re not being replaced.
> Cyclists call for proper segregation as brazen vandals steal bike lane cones again
Trafford Council responded to a road.cc request for comment, a spokesperson for the One Trafford Partnership saying: “We understand the importance of safe travel provision, which is why our traffic team regularly check the lanes to replace any missing cones. However continual theft and vandalism of cones means we’re unable to replace them as quickly as they are removed.
“We are proposing to replace the cones on this section of the highway with an interim cycling scheme and have invested heavily in active travel schemes across the borough of Trafford.”
However, a week later, vandals hit the A56 cycle lane again, this time stealing cones segregating the bike route from the whole stretch of the infrastructure, with One Trafford confirming a “systematic theft”.
15 thoughts on “Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham defends plans for a new segregated cycle path, saying drivers currently dominate the roads”
Quote:
If it’s like my neck of the woods in London, where we have (and I regularly attend) The Oval cricket ground, building new cycle lanes will see a massive increase in the number of people travelling to the ground by bike, especially hire bikes.
The issue with traffic like
The issue with traffic like that in Old Trafford is that all the car parks are located right next to the venues, particularly at Man Utd. Those car parks need to be moved outside the M60, to somewhere like Carrington, and bus services used.
Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:
Venues should have parking right next to them though as “away” supporters will often be arriving by coach and there will need to be facilities for disabled people too. Maybe the parking just needs to be made really expensive for ordinary cars to get them to park elsewhere or travel by public transport instead.
The most effective method
The most effective method would be to levy a charge on parking spaces per annum on locations you want to make better use of, for example city centres. I live within a mile of this location and traffic is grdilock when utd are at home. yet there are lots of buses/trams to that location, I rent my drive out every time for £5 or more, yet the local roads are free to park on (and the pavement too it seems).
There may be a case for some
There may be a case for some limited disabled visitor parking near the stadium, but it’s a total waste of space for coaches to be parked up there during the match. There could be an area for drop-off and pick-ups next to the stadium for (some) official coaches, but there’s likely to be a better use of space next to the stadium than a big coach park.
FionaJJ wrote:
Yeah, a separate coach park would make sense, but would it cause issues with loading up the coach after a match? I could imagine it taking longer to get everyone back onto the coach after they’ve been guzzling beer etc.
The situation on the A56 is a
The situation on the A56 is a bit complicated because the coned lanes were introduced under the EATF scheme during the pandemic. Normally, to get Mayors Challenge Funding for a proper cycle scheme (like on Trafford Road in Salford, or the Chorlton Cycleway), the council would have to make a full business case. That takes time and money. And the longer it takes, the more vandalism the A56 coned lanes suffer. Because of Conservative government austerity, the council can’t afford to keep buying new cones to maintain the lanes. So instead of a full blown rejig of the A56 (like Trafford Road), it looks like we’re getting an interim scheme, which will be a lane in each direction devoted to cycling, protected by wand orcas.
That’s a huge improvement on what exists now, but unfortunately it stops at the motorway junction – it needs to go further south, to Sale, a town which has no safe way to get to Stretford (ignore the canal, it’s not viable as a route).
Trafford are doing some good schemes, but they really need to recognise that they declared a climate emergency. They need to stop worrying about what motorists think, and start thinking about what their children will think in 20 years when there’s even more cars on the road, when the climate is going badly wrong, and when their future is looking increasingly bleak. Nobody then will care about what some van driver from Firswood thinks.
Peowpeowpeowlasers wrote:
There’s nothing incentivising that right now, maybe constituents should get the right to veto MP’s pensons?
MPs don’t scrutinise or
MPs don’t scrutinise or decide on local authority decisions like this. It’s officers and highways engineers who do.
Oops yeah, mind slipped there
Oops yeah, mind slipped there. Swap MPs with councillors and my point still stands.
And while engineers need to relearn to prioritise traffic over motor traffic ultimately the councillors need to be pushed to approve the plans.
Good plan, but it doesn’t go
Good plan, but it doesn’t go far enough. Cars don’t just dominate the road, they want to dominate the entire city. They are utter menaces that have no place in a modern city.
bigwheeler88 wrote:
Indeed, they dominate the pavement too.
they probably should have
they probably should have done the bus lanes first, as the busses are just stuck in the traffic with all the cars with nowhere to go, bit daft really. And uk a local who drives, cycles, busses trams and walks depending on what I’m doing with who.
Yes. But it seems very
Yes. But it seems very difficult to prioritise buses – it’s another “can’t get there from here” vicious circle since because public transport is unreliable (in part by getting stuck in traffic) “the buses don’t work for me” and so there isn’t support for it*.
Notjustbikes again as a good video on buses in traffic and how chosing to prioritise car drivers in busy urban areas ends up being self-defeating.
*Obviously there are other issues with buses like they don’t go places, or they run infrequently, and most people with cars prefer their own personal space in their car.
The amount of people on the
The amount of people on the tram to/from Manchester to alty says a decent service due. Chester road and back bus lane all the way would be very well utilised. Wild much rather be sat on a bus reading / scrolling / whatever, than sat in a car for 30-40 mins each way