8 Month Closure of Liverpool Road - NCN6

United Utilities are about to close the junction of Liverpool Road and Water Street from the middle of August 2013 for approximately 8 months.

This is part of National Cycle Network route 6. It is a busy cycle commuter route and links to Princes Bridge.



The reason is a large amount of work to improve the sewers.

"When it pours down in Manchester, the sewer system can quickly fill up with rainwater. Once the sewer pipes are full, this water, containing diluted sewage, has to go somewhere and at the moment spills into the Manchester Ship Canal... We will be installing an underground chamber with filters, to block out items that should not enter the Manchester Ship canal on those rare occasions that the sewers do overflow."

I spoke to the team from United Utilities when they were on site and they are only planning to close the road itself. The pavements will still be open. However, they did not know whether there are any plans to allow people to cycle on the pavement instead.

However, on a positive note, the closure will make Liverpool Road a much nicer cycle route without all those drivers rat-running through the area. That is if United Utilities remember to block the rat run via New Elm Road and along the cobbles on Potato Wharf. If they don't there will be colisions at the junction of Liverpool Road and Potato Wharf and the cobbles will just get ripped up by the heavy traffic.


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BT Blocking Cycle Lanes

Same place, same disregard for cycling, same company, just opposite sides of the road.

This BT Openreach van was blocking the mandatory cycle lane and on the pavement in Water Street Manchester, 21/12/2012.



This BT Openreach van was blocking the mandatory cycle lane and on the pavement in Water Street Manchester, 11/01/2013.





What use is a cycle facility when it is blocked by a motor vehicle?

None at all!

There is plenty of space to put these vans on Princes Bridge, only 10 yards away...

Motorbike Barriers Don't Work

Motorbike barriers don't work, they just inconvenience everyone. Two people easily lifted this motor scooter through the horse steps on the Trans Pennie Way yesterday.



Yet these barriers make this path almost impossible for tricycles, cycle trailers for children and wheelchairs. It is about time they were removed.


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Princes Bridge - more film crew vehicles.

It seems that the council is quite happy to let film crews use Princes Bridge, National Cycle Network Route 6, as a camp site.



This travelling actor's camp is a regular site on this bridge. One can only assume that this is free parking for the ITV studios.



Clearly the council couldn't care less about this being a busy cycle route...

Ashton Canal - Sportcity to New Islington Wharf

It is not often you find a piece of cycleway with no "Cyclists Dismount" signs, massive barriers or other idiotic rubbish, but that is just what I found out on an afternoon walk.

The section of canal side path from the Alan Turing Way to the canal works at New Islington Wharf is mostly well surfaced, quite wide and there is a reasonable amount of space under the bridges. It might even be wide enough for the Brox.

This is a really nice quiet path for pottering along on a bike and enjoying the afternoon sun.



Alongside Sportcity.






The steep slopes alongside the locks may be a bit of a challenge for some cycles.



But they are in good condition.



Most of the route has a good wide surface



and good clearance under most of the bridges.









Past MERCi...



and the last section up to the canal works which block the route.



Manchester City Centre to Sports City and Medlock Valley (council map) 1.48 MB PDF

And the work going on here makes me think there will be further improvements.


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Fallowfield Loop - the Sainsbury's Tunnel

Having found a reference to a tunnel under the road at Sainsbury's, I had a nose round with the camera today.

Sure enough, you can see the two ends and some of the infrastructure joining the tunnel to the Fallowfield path.

From the west the tunnel is approached by the side of the buildings on the railway bed.



The entrance can be seen, blocked by gates.



From the east the giveaway to its location is the cycle track in the middle of the vehicle ramp



which connects to the gap in the kerb...



Behind the wall is the cycle route



which would have entered the tunnel here.



The designer has removed his version from his web site, so sadly we don't know if he thought this was a good idea or not.

This all begs the question, just how much money was spent on this tunnel and who ended up paying for it?

Update: a follower on twitter has found the text for the deleted web page on the Wayback Machine, so we can now see what he wrote, though the pictures are now sadly lost.


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Fallowfield Loop Barriers 2

Had I tried a little harder to research Saturday's route I might have been better prepared. Adding the word "barrier" to Fallowfield Loop on Google would have given me a much better idea of the route.

2people1bike demonstrates the problem nicely with this photo showing how to get a tandem past the barriers.



Cycle A 2 B has a couple of posts with clear photographs of the barriers, Fallowfield Loop 2 and Fallowfield Loop Barrier.

And, if you can cope with wobbly video from a head-mounted camera, there is also a video, though not of the section I cycled.



Here by comparison is Rowland Dye's rather better made timelapse video of the Bristol to Bath Railway Path - notice the lack of barriers along the path.



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If you are yet to be convinced as to why all cycle routes like this should be open to non-standard pedal cycles then watch this programme - jump 17 minutes in to see just how important cycling is for people with a disability.

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Interestingly CycleA2B contains this note

"As is this page where I found out there is actually a tunnel underneath Sainsbury's on Wilmslow Road, the design was a cock-up though so it's not in use."

Now, whilst the page linked to is no longer available, it links to this web site... http://www.steveessex.com/jobs/, a name which also turns up in this document about access barriers.

And this document contains a photo of the Fallowfield Loop which explains the horse shit on the path and, quite coincidentally, a photo of my Brox.

Barriers to Cycling on the Fallowfield Loop

On Saturday, I took the Brox Compact on the ride from Oxford Road to Chorlton's Big Green Festival to provide a bit of entertainment. As the route included the Fallowfield Loop railway path I had checked the website of the Friends of the Fallowfield Loop and the online map for information about the use of barriers on the route and couldn't find any information whatsoever. I also checked the Manchester cycling map, but again nothing.

Now I would expect a Sustrans Railway Path to have barriers at the exits and entrances to make it difficult to get motor vehicles onto the route, but the rest of the route should be clear. Sustrans got rid of the in-route barriers on the Bristol to Bath path around 20 years ago.

I had no real difficulty getting onto and off of the path, the machine is narrow enough to get through a normal house door, about the same width as a large wheel chair. However, along the short piece of route between Wilmslow Road and Sandy Lane we encountered four three major barriers, and in three two cases I was very grateful for the other riders who helped lift the Brox over the gates.



This was the first one



This bit of bank on one of the barriers was just wide enough.



and the last one, again the Brox had to be lifted.

Quite how the City Council thinks it can get away with barriers which prevent access for anyone with a disability who has to ride a tricycle or other specially adapted machine. It must also be a real pain for large cycle trailers and tandems. I am sure that the DDA would stop this kind of thing being installed now, and may even make them illegal.

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I've tried to find the barriers on Google maps, to plot them, and in the process found this image with two motor vehicles on the path...


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