Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
Graham, Tom and Ian
Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more
What were the local issues four decades ago?
Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
What were the local issues four decades ago?
Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
Kingsway improvement – you asked, we delivered
by Lib Dem team on 16 September, 2014
One of the toughest problems to solve has been the right turn from Cheadle and Gatley. Long queues build up as often only about three cars get to turn with each change of the lights. We spent a long time investigating right-filters but we can’t do that – all the evidence is that even a short right-filter would cause much longer queues in other directions.
We didn’t take computer modelling and TfGM reports as proof about the right-filter though – we wanted to be absolutely sure. A few months ago I stood by the junction with the Highways Agency and TfGM and they changed the timing of the lights, just giving northbound traffic a few seconds less. Unfortunately, the effect was as predicted – the tiny change saw queues build up immediately and we decided not to test the bigger changes because we didn’t want to delay people’s journeys home.
So if that didn’t work – what will?
An issue raised by many residents is that, when you’re waiting to turn right at the front of the queue, you can’t see the oncoming traffic as your view’s blocked by people waiting to turn right from the other direction.
That means there could be a gap in the traffic, but you can’t take advantage of it because you don’t see it until too late.
To help with that problem, we’ve had the right-turn lines painted further out – just enough that if people pull up to the new lines, they’ll have good visibility and be able to spot those gaps. You can never be sure how well these things are going to work, but we hope it will allow an extra car or two to turn right at each change of the lights and that could make quite a significant difference to the queues.
Do let us know how you think it’s working. It may take a little while for people to get used to it – I’ve seen some people hanging back from the new lines when they wait to turn, in which case they’re not going to get any benefit from it.
The Kingsway/Gatley Road junction is a difficult problem to solve: there’s simply far more traffic than it was ever designed for and no fiddling with light timings is going to change that. As we always say, the only real ways to sort out the junction are to have more road or less traffic, and neither is cheap or easy.
The junction is controlled by Transport for Greater Manchester, not Stockport Council, and because it’s so close to the motorway, the Highways Agency also gets a say in what happens.
Our approach has been to make small improvements wherever we can, and at the same time look for opportunities to tackle the bigger problems. We put in the left filter lane from Gatley a few years ago, and last year we got the lane-realignment on Kingsway northbound put in – they’ve both helped, but the junction is still not easy.
8 Comments
Radical solution: provide an entry slip to the M60 eastbound at Cheadle Roscoes, then just ban the right turn out of Cheadle onto the A34.
Justification: because the right-turn is so hard it is already more efficient to use Manchester Road if heading inside the M60, and Cheadle Roscoes for the M60 westbound. And for the M56 there’s no choice anyway. So the only people who NEED to turn right onto the A34 are those going onto the M60 eastbound. It is clearly ridiculous that you have to leave Cheadle in a westerly direction through such a bottleneck junction to do that, and there is an obvious way to provide an alternative….
Probably some reason it won’t work, but I’d like to know what it is….
Mark – I agree, it’s an option that needs to be looked at.
Iain I’ve said this before because it seems obvious to me. No need to take time for a filter off the N/S traffic, take it off the E/ W timing.
Also if there was a sign on the Gatley side warning left turning traffic that cars will be merging ahead (ie turning right) that would help. There are three lanes on the A 34, so two cars turning at the same time is not dangerous.
Hi Alan,
You have said that before, and I think I did say what the issue was with doing it. You get much longer queues E/W, so people wanting to go left or straight ahead will have longer waits. As those queues get longer, they will block cars trying to get into the right-turn lane so you’ll have a right filter on green and cars unable to take advantage of it.
Although it is only a minor change, it is definitely much easier to see the oncoming traffic. Well done!
As Iain has admitted the roads (A34 & Gatley-Cheadle) were simply not designed for the current and increasing traffic volumes. Fiddling with timings is never going to work effectively. The only short and long-term answer is to build effective roads – including bridges & tunnels for crossovers – and/or divert commuter travel onto rail. It is also obvious to all that building more housing in surrounding countryside is going to add traffic and should be stopped completely until that traffic is accounted for in travel re-design! It is called Planning.
My recollection is that when this fool’s errand was embarked upon we were told a right-filter turning N onto the A34 from the Cheadle direction was going to be the next step.
That seems to have changed, doesn’t it?
Before the E-bound configuration was changed from two lanes to three the N-bound turn actually worked quite well: coming from Cheadle as soon as you could see one of the oncoming cars indicating left, you simply pulled across in front. To see this operating at rush hour, with a dozen cars getting across each cycle, was a minor miracle of common sense.
It does make one desperately cynical about professional traffic managers. And about local councillors. A vast amount of money, much disruption and many photo opportunities later (concerned-looking councillors photographed with their clipboard-clutching colleagues), guess what? A moderately bad situation has got slightly worse. Who knew?!
Hi Nick – you’re right – if you go back a few years we wanted a right-filter. That’s why all the work was done to find out if there was a way to have a right-turn filter which would work. Unfortunately, having followed the evidence, we’ve found that there doesn’t seem to be a sensible way to do it.
I disagree on the additional lane from Gatley – it’s worked fairly well in getting more cars through. The queues back to Cheadle haven’t changed significantly either way, but hopefully these latest changes will help drivers achieve what you describe.