The upcoming works on the Deansgate Interchange (Chester Road Roundabout) from a cyclist's perspective.
I have finally been sent drawings of what will be done at the MSIRR junctions over the next few months. And they didn't actually come to me directly from the council who have ignored me and passed me on to other departments for weeks now, which was very frustrating. But now, against the best efforts of the council, I have the drawings and can publish/discuss them here. While I am not impressed by the Regent Road/Trinity Way junction plans at all, that's a story for another day.
Today I am focusing on the Deansgate Interchange, which is actually already decent in places but has a fair few issues. I'd say my main issues with the junction are:
The first section is definitely an improvement. You can see the "slip lane" that takes cycles off the (soon to be upgraded under the Chorlton cycleway scheme) Northbound mandatory cycle lane on Chorlton Road is having its angles improved. Currently you have to slow to get from the road onto the cycleway but this looks much better.
Secondly, the southbound section has been massively improved. As it is now, you have to dart across two lanes of Northbound traffic, wait in the central reservation, and then dart across two lanes of southbound traffic at a poor angle. On these drawings we can see that the crossing now has stop lines and thus signals to keep you safe. The crossing is also further down the road away from the roundabout, so there is more time to react to cars exiting the roundabout without signalling left. That said, it's not perfect.
While the added safety from the lights is nice, it just adds yet another traffic light for cyclists to wait at, and I expect the timings will prioritise car movement rather than letting cyclists do the whole junction in one go. Netherlands style cycle priority crossings would be nice, although I am very sceptical about the ability or willingness of drivers to give way to cyclists upon entering/exiting a high speed roundabout like this, so perhaps this is the safer option for now. It is pleasing though that my main issues with this section can easily be rectified afterwards though, by changing light timings etc, so this section is rather good in my book.
Now if we continue along the cycleway, we can see that the crossing of the slip road off the roundabout and onto Chester Road is also improved. The two directions of bikes have been given separate lanes to use as currently you are crammed into a very small space, although I still think the "T junction" between the Chester Road cycleway, the crossing, and the Chorlton Road cycleway has a lot of potential conflict involved and not much queuing space. Again, something that can easily be fixed later though.
The island is being made larger, although it looks extremely confusing. There just seems to be too many directions of bikes and pedestrians crammed into too small of a space. I'd argue that one of the FIVE lanes of motor traffic should be removed in order to allow for a much better island design, but of course since this rebuild's goal is literally to add more motor lanes, that's obviously not going to happen. That said, there does appear to be considerably more space to wait than before and the angles look better. It's just a shame that this mediocre island design is going to be used for at least 5-10 (probably 15-20) years as the council will be very reluctant to tear up this junction again and REMOVE car space. I fully expect this to clog up quickly when the Chorlton Cycleway is built, I very much doubt it will even be able to handle current peak levels of cyclists (for example a sunny Friday at 5:30pm).
I'm also very confused by the crossing of Chester Road here towards Salford. It is currently unidirectional and narrow, and these designs see it being expanded to be bidirectional. Presumably this will also include work to build a bidirectional cycleway along the Ring Road, at least until Ellesmere street, as currently there is nowhere for those contraflow cyclists to come from. It does make sense to have bidirectional cycleways on this side of the road though, currently you cannot easily cross the Ring Road from Ellesmere Street and that area of Manchester. What strikes me as odd is that they seem to have got the two directions of cycle lane crossing over each other, scalextric style. How did anyone think this was a good idea?
Continuing towards Deansgate, we can see both cycle crossings of the roundabout have been given separated lanes for the two directions, a good idea. This straight section seems largely unchanged though, except for a bit of kerb manipulation to let cars turn right from the roundabout onto Chester Road. Will save them having to drive all the way round I guess!
Now we can look at the other islands. Again they have been enlarged ever so slightly but not that much. The design is much more clear here but still not perfect. As before, the cycle crossings have been given separate lanes for each direction. This is a huge improvement in the crossing of Chester Road. Currently it is unidirectional, in the southbound direction, meaning there is no legitimate way to get onto the shared footway going alongside the North side of Chester Road. These plans mean that you will be able to make this crossing in both directions, a huge improvement!
The crossing of the slip road coming off the roundabout and onto Chester Road has also had stop lines and traffic lights added. Currently you just have to give way and then dash across in a gap. This is a great change, although as you can see at the very top of this image, the crossing of Blantyre Street has had no such treatment, still requiring cyclists to give way and search for a gap. This is a low traffic exit, there absolutely should be parallel zebra crossing here, or a stop light.
Another bonus is that when you have crossed Chester Road, there are dedicated cycleways letting you onto/off of the shared pavement on the North side of Chester Road. Currently the cycleway is set into the pavement, meaning you either have a nasty drop off a kerb when joining it, or have to bunny hop over the same kerb to leave it. I'm still not a huge fan of this shared pavement. I don't mind sharing with pedestrians (because there are few and it's just about wide enough), but the lack of priority at a junction into Castlegate residential complex is ridiculous, the surface is bad, and you have to rejoin the road soon anyway.
Finally we have the last section, the already existing bidirectional cycleway along Chester Road towards Deansgate. This is almost entirely unchanged except for the kerb being cut into half way along to let people join the cycleway from Chester Road. I'm not entirely sure what this is for (there are already entrances to the cycleway at Great Jackson Street and Deansgate, but OK. You can see this in a few places on these drawings: they have retained ASLs and provided entrances to the cycleways for cyclists who were previously using the road. If they were truly confident that the design was truly convenient, they would have removed these features as they'd be useless because all cyclists would be using the cycleway. As it is, these features indicate they expect some people to remain on the road, meaning they don't think this is the best possible design suitable for all.
I am disappointed to see no changes at the Great Jackson Street junction which is a big problem, and the current end of the cycleway at Deansgate is not included on the maps so is also not seeing any changes under this scheme. At least the changes to the junction mean you can now use the shared footway on the North side of Chester Road, rather than people coming into town being dumped on the wrong side of Chester Road as they are currently, but a more cohesive design down this section would have been nice.
Overall, the changes are almost all positive, with some real safety increases and hopefully capacity increases too, although the light phasing is really going to make or break this junction in terms of convenience. It is already bad enough for cycling as you have to stop at minimum 2, maximum 4 traffic lights and multiple give ways to get from Chorlton Road to Deansgate or vice versa. Ideally you should only have to wait at two red lights max. One to get onto the long straight section in the middle, and one to get off it onto an arterial road. Hopefully with the extra lanes allowing the same number of cars to get through in a shorter time than currently, the council might consider giving more priority to cycle lights here. Unlikely, but we can hope?
Feel free to comment on here or on Twitter about anything I've missed, or your impressions. DM me if you want the PDF showing the rest of the junctions.
Today I am focusing on the Deansgate Interchange, which is actually already decent in places but has a fair few issues. I'd say my main issues with the junction are:
- traffic islands too small so a moderate amount of bikes (over 6 or 7) can completely clog up the islands meaning any additional cyclists than that have to wait for the next green light.
- far too many stops and poor light timings. Crossing the junction as a cyclist from Chorlton Rd to Deansgate can have you hit 4 red lights, they don't seem to have any sort of intelligence so that you can go through in one or two movements.
- many of the crossings are currently completely unsignalled for cyclists, so you have to dart across two or three lanes without a green cycle light to help you.
I will go into more detail about specific sections now:
The first section is definitely an improvement. You can see the "slip lane" that takes cycles off the (soon to be upgraded under the Chorlton cycleway scheme) Northbound mandatory cycle lane on Chorlton Road is having its angles improved. Currently you have to slow to get from the road onto the cycleway but this looks much better.
Secondly, the southbound section has been massively improved. As it is now, you have to dart across two lanes of Northbound traffic, wait in the central reservation, and then dart across two lanes of southbound traffic at a poor angle. On these drawings we can see that the crossing now has stop lines and thus signals to keep you safe. The crossing is also further down the road away from the roundabout, so there is more time to react to cars exiting the roundabout without signalling left. That said, it's not perfect.
While the added safety from the lights is nice, it just adds yet another traffic light for cyclists to wait at, and I expect the timings will prioritise car movement rather than letting cyclists do the whole junction in one go. Netherlands style cycle priority crossings would be nice, although I am very sceptical about the ability or willingness of drivers to give way to cyclists upon entering/exiting a high speed roundabout like this, so perhaps this is the safer option for now. It is pleasing though that my main issues with this section can easily be rectified afterwards though, by changing light timings etc, so this section is rather good in my book.
Now if we continue along the cycleway, we can see that the crossing of the slip road off the roundabout and onto Chester Road is also improved. The two directions of bikes have been given separate lanes to use as currently you are crammed into a very small space, although I still think the "T junction" between the Chester Road cycleway, the crossing, and the Chorlton Road cycleway has a lot of potential conflict involved and not much queuing space. Again, something that can easily be fixed later though.
The island is being made larger, although it looks extremely confusing. There just seems to be too many directions of bikes and pedestrians crammed into too small of a space. I'd argue that one of the FIVE lanes of motor traffic should be removed in order to allow for a much better island design, but of course since this rebuild's goal is literally to add more motor lanes, that's obviously not going to happen. That said, there does appear to be considerably more space to wait than before and the angles look better. It's just a shame that this mediocre island design is going to be used for at least 5-10 (probably 15-20) years as the council will be very reluctant to tear up this junction again and REMOVE car space. I fully expect this to clog up quickly when the Chorlton Cycleway is built, I very much doubt it will even be able to handle current peak levels of cyclists (for example a sunny Friday at 5:30pm).
I'm also very confused by the crossing of Chester Road here towards Salford. It is currently unidirectional and narrow, and these designs see it being expanded to be bidirectional. Presumably this will also include work to build a bidirectional cycleway along the Ring Road, at least until Ellesmere street, as currently there is nowhere for those contraflow cyclists to come from. It does make sense to have bidirectional cycleways on this side of the road though, currently you cannot easily cross the Ring Road from Ellesmere Street and that area of Manchester. What strikes me as odd is that they seem to have got the two directions of cycle lane crossing over each other, scalextric style. How did anyone think this was a good idea?
Now we can look at the other islands. Again they have been enlarged ever so slightly but not that much. The design is much more clear here but still not perfect. As before, the cycle crossings have been given separate lanes for each direction. This is a huge improvement in the crossing of Chester Road. Currently it is unidirectional, in the southbound direction, meaning there is no legitimate way to get onto the shared footway going alongside the North side of Chester Road. These plans mean that you will be able to make this crossing in both directions, a huge improvement!
The crossing of the slip road coming off the roundabout and onto Chester Road has also had stop lines and traffic lights added. Currently you just have to give way and then dash across in a gap. This is a great change, although as you can see at the very top of this image, the crossing of Blantyre Street has had no such treatment, still requiring cyclists to give way and search for a gap. This is a low traffic exit, there absolutely should be parallel zebra crossing here, or a stop light.
Another bonus is that when you have crossed Chester Road, there are dedicated cycleways letting you onto/off of the shared pavement on the North side of Chester Road. Currently the cycleway is set into the pavement, meaning you either have a nasty drop off a kerb when joining it, or have to bunny hop over the same kerb to leave it. I'm still not a huge fan of this shared pavement. I don't mind sharing with pedestrians (because there are few and it's just about wide enough), but the lack of priority at a junction into Castlegate residential complex is ridiculous, the surface is bad, and you have to rejoin the road soon anyway.
Finally we have the last section, the already existing bidirectional cycleway along Chester Road towards Deansgate. This is almost entirely unchanged except for the kerb being cut into half way along to let people join the cycleway from Chester Road. I'm not entirely sure what this is for (there are already entrances to the cycleway at Great Jackson Street and Deansgate, but OK. You can see this in a few places on these drawings: they have retained ASLs and provided entrances to the cycleways for cyclists who were previously using the road. If they were truly confident that the design was truly convenient, they would have removed these features as they'd be useless because all cyclists would be using the cycleway. As it is, these features indicate they expect some people to remain on the road, meaning they don't think this is the best possible design suitable for all.
I am disappointed to see no changes at the Great Jackson Street junction which is a big problem, and the current end of the cycleway at Deansgate is not included on the maps so is also not seeing any changes under this scheme. At least the changes to the junction mean you can now use the shared footway on the North side of Chester Road, rather than people coming into town being dumped on the wrong side of Chester Road as they are currently, but a more cohesive design down this section would have been nice.
Overall, the changes are almost all positive, with some real safety increases and hopefully capacity increases too, although the light phasing is really going to make or break this junction in terms of convenience. It is already bad enough for cycling as you have to stop at minimum 2, maximum 4 traffic lights and multiple give ways to get from Chorlton Road to Deansgate or vice versa. Ideally you should only have to wait at two red lights max. One to get onto the long straight section in the middle, and one to get off it onto an arterial road. Hopefully with the extra lanes allowing the same number of cars to get through in a shorter time than currently, the council might consider giving more priority to cycle lights here. Unlikely, but we can hope?
Feel free to comment on here or on Twitter about anything I've missed, or your impressions. DM me if you want the PDF showing the rest of the junctions.
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