Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
Graham, Tom and Ian
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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
What’s planned to improve the Kingsway junction?
by Lib Dem team on 2 March, 2015
We’ve already reported back from Mark Hunter’s public meeting about the Kingsway/Gatley Road junction. Residents came up with lots of good suggestions and, though we know there are no easy answers, they’ve been taken away by the Highways Agency, TfGM and Stockport Council to investigate.
Local MP Mark Hunter addresses the public meeting
But there are some measures already planned to improve the junction. None will solve the problem but they should help. We live in a prosperous area with high employment. That’s good, but it means more and more people want to drive to work, to shops and other places. The changes already made, and those planned, may not radically reduce the problems at the junction but could stop them getting worse as traffic increases.
The current proposed improvements to the junction and the area around it are:
- Signalisation of the Eden Park roundabout to the south of the junction.
- Signalisation and physical improvements to the Stanley Green roundabout and A555/A34 roundabouts
- Lane changes where the sliproads off the clockwise and anti-clockwise M60 J3 merge to improve traffic flow up to Kingsway.
- “Keep Clear” box where the South Park Road Estate joins the slip road off the M60 – we’re hoping this will be in place in the next two months.
- M60 “Smart motorway” between Stockport and Sharston. This will allow the hard shoulder to be used for traffic at peak times. It will increase the capacity of the motorway, and so reduce the number of cars leaving the motorway to take a short-cut through Gatley and Cheadle.
- Traffic camera to be put up facing back down the motorway slip road off the M60 so the team at the control centre in Manchester can easily see how far it’s queueing back and remotely adjust the traffic light timings accordingly.
We know this is just a start. Over the summer a much bigger study will be conducted, looking at the wider area and including the suggestions made at the meeting to see what needs to be done to keep us all moving in the years to come.
10 Comments
Just a thought on the “smart motorway”.
Is there not a danger to motorists if there is a back-up from the slip road, which cuts off the hard shoulder to those wanting to go straight on to Sharston?
There could be John – these smart motorways have been around for a few years now so hopefully the highway design people will deal with it.
Wouldn’t we be looking into having less cars on the road instead of altering roads. If people gave lefts etc it would ease the junction as most of the cars in these queues are single occupancy. Let’s look at this problem from a different view.
Hi Arthur, I agree, that’s got to be part of the solution and one of the reasons I think Mark Hunter’s campaign for Metrolink to Cheadle and Gatley is so important.
If you increase the carriageways that can “slip off” from the M60 clockwise to the A34 Southbound, it will go down to two lanes where it meets the traffic exiting the M60 anticlockwise. Can we re-introduce those signs saying “merge in turn” Sensible courteous drivers do this anyway – unfortunately not all drivers are like this! It seemed to work quite well when the junction alterations were in hand.
Stanley Green is already a nightmare. Far better to reconstruct it to have on/off ramps rather than a roundabout at all- that’s what causes the delays. I doubt that signalisation will improve anything, other than the quality of the queues!
It’s good news about the ‘keep clear’ hatching. Have been banging on about it for over a year now. What happens now is relying on drivers to let you in first on the offside lane,
(usually when the traffic lights on red), then thread through to the inside lane, ready to be in position to turn left into Cheadle. What happens now is that vehicles change lanes to the outside lane (without signalling) and can be potentially dangerous. Perhaps signage for drivers to stay in lane might be an added safety measure. Thanks to all concerned for making the Cheadle destination safer.
Regarding stanley green roundabout, it would be great if you could get twin lanes painted on earl road (the Stanley green retail estate main road) all the way back to Tesco. Leaving the retail estate at peak time is difficult as left hand turners get stuck in right turn traffic. thanks
I regularly use the junction and put up with the attendant queues – having little choice since I live close – and can see nothing that can be tinkered with to make any worthwhile improvements.
Only drastic action has any short & long term prospect of improvement! Divert main N-S traffic flow elsewhere – perhaps a two-tier addition to an existing route into Manchester (but not on the A34). However I do accept that that is probably unacceptable politically & economically.
The entrance and signage to the cycle lane at Cheadle Royal (Old A34) has been improved greatly presumably as a result of comments at the meeting. Now all we have got to do is to persuade ALL cyclists to use it.