Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
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by Lib Dem team on 29 December, 2010
I’ll be writing about this in more detail when I have a final report, so please treat this as interim information.
Pam King, Mark Hunter and I have been working to find ways to improve the Kingsway junction, in particular for people turning right from Cheadle & Gatley onto Kingsway.
The junction is one of the busiest in Greater Manchester – a typical rush hour morning sees more than 7,000 vehicles pass through in just one hour. The junction is controlled by two bodies: Manchester Urban Traffic Control and the Highways Agency. The Council doesn’t have control over either of them, so we aim to influence.
The left-turn filter from Gatley has significantly improved the junction from the Gatley side. I can well remember a queue right through Gatley back to West End and beyond was the norm every single morning and evening before the extra lane went in. Now the queues on the Gatley side are typically shorter and clear more quickly.
There were four more options that seemed plausible and affordable that we’ve been looking at, so here’s a summary of where each is up to.
1. Dedicated right turn filters
We were keen that the option of having a dedicated right-turn filter was properly looked at. Whilst it might change (see 4 below) the current situation is that the right turn filter has been rejected by Manchester UTC and the Highways Agency.
Their reasons are:
2. Reduce the traffic light cycle time from three minutes to two minutes
At peak times the time it takes for a complete cycle of the traffic lights round the junction is three minutes. The suggestion was to reduce this to two minutes.
Without a dedicated right turn filter, around 3-4 cars are able to turn right in each cycle (when the Gatley/Cheadle lights turn red and before the Kingsway lights turn green). If the cycles were shorter, more cars would be able to turn right. Initial computer modelling of the junction suggested this would make quite a big difference.
We’ve now had a report based on further, more detailed, computer modelling and the news seems to be less good.
Switching the cycle time to two minutes will shorten queues on the Cheadle/Gatley roads in the morning rush-hour but will lead to longer queues on Kingsway and the M60, and the average journey time would be increased. In the evening rush-hour it would make no difference to queues on Kingsway and would shorten the Cheadle queue, but the modelling suggests the queue on the Gatley side would actually get quite a bit longer.
We’ll be looking into this in more detail, but at the moment it looks like the cycle time will stay at three minutes (but, again, see item 4 below).
3. Re-organise the northbound lanes approaching the junction
If you approach the junction on Kingsway from the south (going past Cheadle Royal), you’ll notice that the three lanes typically have very different quantities of traffic in them.
The left hand lane is the busiest, with the middle lane being lighter and the right hand lane having the least traffic – often with a queue of less than half the length of the left hand lane.
The reason is down to where they go. The left hand lane is the one to be in for Gatley, the South Park Road estate, the M60 Westbound and the M60 Eastbound. The other two lanes are for Manchester (though people often use them for the motorway and then pull across after clearing the junction.
The idea is to even out the usage of the lanes, get more vehicles through the junction on each cycle and cut the queues. So, for example, the left lane might be changed to be for Gatley, with the middle lane for the M60 and the right hand lane for Manchester.
4. Additional lights to control the flow of traffic from the M60 onto Kingsway
Of all the proposals here, this is the one that’s actually scheduled to happen with money in a budget to pay for it (or so we’ve been told).
As you come off the M60 to join Kingsway southbound, you currently get squeezed down to one lane (this is for safety reasons, following a bad accident some years ago). That lane of traffic from the motorway then has to merge with the Kingsway traffic just as it approached the lights. In rush hour that can easily result in 15 or 20 minutes sitting on the slip road.
The plan is to put a set of “flip-flop” lights where the slip road meets Kingsway and make the slip road a proper two-lane road again. At peak hours, traffic from the slip-road would alternate with traffic coming out of Manchester and I’m told this will make a significant difference in speeding things up from the north.
What next?
One of the main barriers to the dedicated right filter and the reduced cycle time schemes is that they result in longer queues north and south on Kingsway. If the flip-flop lights reduced queues to the north and the re-designed lanes reduced queues to the south, there would be more chances that one of those schemes to make life easier for those turning right onto Kingsway from Cheadle or Gatley would get through.
When I’ve got the final version of the report on reducing the cycle time, I’ll publish it here and you can take a look and comment on it. Rest assured that Pam, Mark and myself are keeping a close eye on developments and applying pressure where we can to get further improvements to the junction.
16 Comments
Surely only a dive-under (for north – south traffic) be the long term solution ?
It continues to completely beat me that the authorities consider the current right turn free-for-all to be better and safer traffic management than introducing both way filters. Their stance is such patent nonsense that if defies belief.
As a right turner I have to agree with John Hartley. Most times you take your life into your hands when turning right on to Kingsway. Particularly when those driving straight on into Cheadle jump the lights a not uncommon occurrence.
The queues would be a lot shorter if 3 to 4 cars were able to turn right at every cycle, sometimes only one or two cars will get round. People dither and also the ability to see oncoming traffic, as those queuing from Gatley to turn right block the view. All in all the powers that control this junction have definitely opted for the easy option since I would consider that coming from Cheadle and turning right is very dangerous.
I admit I don’t understand the technical arguments behind the current situation being less dangerous than having more right-turn time; but to be fair I’ve no expertise in this area so it’s more than likely my own lack of understanding is down to my lack of knowledge rather than the argument being wrong.
If the the bypass extension by the belfry hotel was completed to the airport surely a lot of traffic would divert that way reducing the traffic flow at gatley lights.
If the bypass extension by the Belfry hotel was completed surely a lot of traffic would divert towards the airport and motorway reducing the amount of traffic at the junction.
A right turn filter with even the shortest of delays (10-20 sec) would greatly assist the right turn position. I don’t buy the ‘a delay back up the south bound traffic’ argumement as there is a pedestrian crossing 5m from the junction which holds up the traffice for a similar time, possibly longer. To avoid the right turn I am driving through gatley & heald green to get to cheadle royal business park – this is not a sustainable solution. Bring on the improvements to the kingways M60 slip too!
Ian -is your clocking running 1 hour fast ?
Do you remember The Cheadle Crawl? Opening A34-Kingsway-Parrs Wood was to allow the Wilmslow area commuters easier access to Manchester. It has not worked. The crawl (now much increased) has shifted half a mile West to the A34 (plus parallel ‘rat-runs’) and the attendant congestion . Fiddling with Traffic Light timing will make no discernible difference. Radical planning with investment in road/rail/reduced concentration of traffic targets in city centres is essential. With rapidly increasing population density but without foresight – GRIDLOCK.
On a related issue, yesterday I was left-filtering from Gatley onto Kingsway, when yet another idiot did a U-turn on Kingsway (south to north), causing me to brake very sharply to avoid being hit. The idiots, of course, probably have no knowledge of the left-filter and just think it’s OK to ignore the “no U-turn” signage. It really is most dangerous. Cameras are going to be needed to sort this out, so the offenders can be prosecuted, before someone is injured or killed
As a South Park resident, I dread the option of ‘Flip-Flop’ lights – we will be stuck even longer, trying to get off the estate to join the slip road on to the Southbound A34. We need a ‘KEEP CLEAR’ box at the exit from the estate onto the slip road, something which I have tried to suggest numerous times.
Apropos the right turns onto the A34 from both Cheadle & Gatley: If all the parking bays along the A34 infront of the houses between the slip road & Broadway in both directions were abolished, then an extra lane would be available in either direction maybe even resulting in a dedicated left turn at the lights in both cases. I appreciate the residents along here would object but most of us have had to sacrifice all or part of our front gardens in order to have parking space so why can’t the residents on Kingsway?
This morning I was waiting at the lights and spotted another U-turner also narrowly missing a car left-filtering. It’s only a matter of time before there’s a serious accident here.
Unfortunately, the a34 has become a nightmare since the terrible decision to allow shopping centres, business parks, offices and houses to be built along its entire length. This has resulted in large numbers of extra vehicles using the road that previously wouldn’t have. Cheadle and Gatley needs a bypass itself now, but alas, there is nowhere for this to go. As a previous poster mentioned, a one lane each way underpass, or flyover may be an option worth looking at for the north-south traffic. This would hopefully allow the timings of the lights to be adjusted to suit the east-west traffic.
For the time being, I can’t see why they can’t put a right filter in for both east and west, that works like this…the lights operate as they do now, but whereas when the east west traffic lights go red now, they would only go red in future for cars going straight on or turning left, and a green right turn filter would then stay on for about 5-10 seconds. This would allow another 3 or 4 cars to turn right both ways, whilst only holding the north south traffic up for an extra 5-10 seconds. Surely not enough to cause any additional problems?
There is a plan to put an underpass north-south at the junction as part of the South East manchester Multi Modal scheme (SEMMMS) but i don’t think there’s likely to be the money to do it anytime in the near future.
Concerned resident – i wouldn’t have thought taking a few seconds off the north-south time would have had a big effect, but the modelling suggests that it would, unfortunately, so the powers that be are very keen to avoid going down that route.
I used to live in Gatley but have recently moved to Cheadle Hulme, nevertheless i regularly use this junction and follow progress keenly, i am also a transport planner/engineer by trade! Basically a few seconds here and there does make a big difference to queues on each arm. It is also not just a case of switching a few seconds when looking at right turn indicative arrows, there is additional time associated with phase intergreens etc. Also there is a wealth of evidence which does demonstrate than indicative arrow right turners (both hooking and non hooking arrangements) can result in increased accidents, especially given the relatively small size of ths junction. It is also regrettable that the traffic blocking back onto the M60 is given a greater priority than that on the Cheadle/Gatley arms, however this is (rightly so) always the case.
Have Stockport considered applying/bidding for funding from the new Local Sustainable Transport Fund for road safety/highway safety engineering schemes? June 2011 is the deadline for the next round of bids.
what is the story with the two sets of “spy” / CCTV cameras on the A34 near the cheadle royal junction. does anyone know where they came from and what they do ?
one minute there was 2 per pole and now there is 4 per pole (one southbound and one northbound).
are they just for traffic modelling or do they have some useful / security purpose that we are not allowed to know about ?