Graham, Tom and Ian

Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more

Keep Clear boxes for Gatley Road/Church Road junction

by Lib Dem team on 1 October, 2014

The Lib Dem team have been working on getting Keep Clear boxes painted at the junction of Church Road and Gatley Road/Northenden Road in Gatley.

It’s not been quite as easy as we’d hoped due to regulations from the Department for Transport that need to be complied with, but we’ve now got a proposal we’ll be pushing for.

The Keep Clear boxes aren’t quite a large as we’d like – regulations mean that they can’t overlap with the zig-zags approaching the pedestrian crossing – but we’re sure they’ll help traffic merge from Church Road.

War memorial keep clear

   12 Comments

12 Responses

  1. John Hartley says:

    Even better would be to install the often mentioned traffic lights. I don’t regard it as a safe junction to turn right and always go the long way round via Park Road.

    • Phil says:

      I agree with John, i don’t touch this junction. More important than looking at painting road marks is to address the increased traffic on Gatley Road. Even at 1000 the other day it took me 10 minutes to get to the lights at Kingsway from the station. Has anyone conducted a traffic survey to see where this traffic is coming from and going to?

  2. Robert Taggart says:

    Loathed as one be to agree with JH – one cannot believe this dangerous junction STILL has no traffic control lights.

  3. Iain Roberts says:

    Traffic lights are a longer-term option, though as no-one has a spare £100,000 knocking around, Keep Clear boxes are a much quicker improvement.

    Traffic surveys have been done to look at where all the traffic goes (to feed into the modelling for the A6 to Manchester Airport relief road) though I don’t have that data to hand and I guess it’d be pretty complicated to get my head round.

  4. Lucas says:

    Not sure this is a good idea. We should be discouraging traffic from making a right turn here, not making it easier to nip in front of traffic on the main road.

  5. Lois Evans says:

    I agree with Lucas – its the right turn which is the problem.
    The only solution is traffic lights and sorting out the Kingsway junction

  6. Andy Mcknight says:

    hi
    Good to see this but would a mini roundabout work – lower cost than traffic lights?

  7. Pat Whitwam says:

    Now please can we have ‘Keep Clear’ boxes across the whole junction of M60 Slip Road & A34 – ideally with cameras – as sometimes numerous cars continue through the red lights, from both directions in turn, thus blocking the junction. It is a free-for-all during peak times especially.

  8. richyrichmeangreenspeedracerofaredcar says:

    The right turn is not the problem. Lack of visability is the problem. The clock tower & corner building help obscure the junction for drivers from all directions. Most people can make use of the pedestrian light change to get out from church rd. Please not another set of lights. What about a roundabout? The clock tower could be re-located into the middle of it.

  9. Marie says:

    One of the problems is that it is a blind junction – can a mirror be placed so that traffic turning right out of Church Rd can see if cars are approaching from Gatley Rd? At 6am one morning I was nearly hit by a car doing about 40mph

    • Iain Roberts says:

      Hi Marie – unfortunately not – the Government has strict rules on where mirrors can be used (because they have problems as well as benefits) and they aren’t allowed in this sort of location. It’s one of those junctions that you’d never design like that today, but no doubt wasn’t a problem a century ago.

  10. Jane says:

    I’m really pleased to hear about this Keep Clear box. It will definitely make it ‘less’ dangerous to turn right out of Church Rd during rush hour because there will be a gap to drive into, whereas at the moment, you are generally met with a line of cars bumper to bumper, even when someone’s pressed the lights at the crossing. It means either waiting for someone to leave a space, or actually blocking the road.

    It’s not about ‘nipping in front of traffic on the main road’ – People coming out of Church Rd aren’t queue jumping. The queue jumpers turn OFF Church Rd & wizz up Oakwood down the side of the Co-op in order to come out near the front of the queue at the railway station.

    Ideally, the solution would be to move the crossing from the right hand side of the Horse & Farrier to the left hand side of the Horse & Farrier but as Iain said, it’s very expensive & I’d rather have something than nothing to be honest so hopefully, this will help.

    I guess we can’t really complain about the number of cars on Gatley Rd when we ourselves are one of those cars!

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