When you start to take a closer look at the problems with the roads in central Manchester you start to realise that traffic law is simply not enforced.
I took a look at the junctions on Deansgate today, stopping to video a few light sequences. In over half the videos I took people drove through the lights on red.
In this first example the red Audi is so late through the red lights it passes through the pedestrian crossing on the green man.
In this second example two people drive through on red.
This third example shows a bus running the red light into Liverpool Road so late that the cars going through on green have to stop!
Finally a family on bikes try to get well ahead of the traffic...
Is it any wonder that cycling on Deansgate has declined? Manchester City Council has made this area far more dangerous and the police don't seem to do anything about the people who drive through red lights.
I know this junction pretty well, even though I have lived in Sheffield for over 20 years. This is an astonishing lack of planning sense, very similar to the multiple site junction narrowing that took place in Sheffield in the early 1990s. There appeared to be no reason for the junction changes in those examples either
ReplyDeleteCyclenation have been talking about Deansgate in their latest newsletter... I think they're out of touch.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cyclenation.org.uk/news/news126.pdf