It all looked so promising back in 2020, when Trafford Council had big ambitions to section off a seven mile stretch of the A56 with cones, to provide safe space for cycling. Now here we are, almost four years on and it looks like what remains of the cones are disappearing week by week, with no signs of them being replaced or anything more permanent happening. Is it the end of the A56 pop-up cycle lanes?
For those unfamiliar with the chequered history of the A56 pop-up cycle lanes, can read more in these previous posts Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
For some time now, there’s been a bit of a cat and mouse game, with cones disappearing along the route, usually to be found dumped in verges, in the canal or elsewhere. The council’s highways team then returning them to their proper place, with fewer cones making it back each time. This has now left what was already a much reduced route, barely functional, due to the many sections with no cones.
Of course, all of this comes at the expense of local council tax payers, just because some selfish drivers, who can’t handle space being allocated to anything other than motor vehicles have taken matters into their own hands.
So how bad are things now?
Southbound
The southbound side of the A56 remains the better side at the moment, with more of the cones still in place. There are a few gaps on the section between Davyhulme Road East and Edge Lane, but they’re largely still there.
The cones do mostly continue after the Edge Lane until you reach Crossford Street, where the they end completely. This leaves you unprotected on a particularly dangerous section of the A56, where lots of drivers speed up as they approach the M60, often thinking more about getting through the lights, than paying attention to what’s around them.
Northbound
Things are even worse on the northbound side of the A56. Starting at the M60, the cones are gone all the way up to the gyratory, except for the odd sorry looking cone left abandoned. After the gyratory lights, the cones appear for a small section until Chapel Lane in what was the bus lane, until they end.
Other than a random set of cones that remain at the pedestrian crossing, there’s no cones until you reach the lay-by. At this point, the cones start again as you approach the Edge Lane junction.
Following the Edge Lane junction, there’s no cones whatsoever along the rest of the A56. This leaves you mixing with three lanes of often speeding traffic up to the Davyhulme Road East junction.
Following the Davyhulme Road East junction, the cones that used to help you get to the right hand lane, to get onto Talbot Road have also gone. This means only the brave will attempt to negotiate the three lanes to do this.
The future?
There is hope for something more permanent. Last year, the council announced proposals to replace the cones with wands from the Talbot Road junction to the recycling centre, as part of what was described as a interim improvements. There was also a consultation which ended September 2023 and some minor changes following it.
With this being an interim scheme, there’s certainly compromises, particularly around the treatment of the bus stop lay-bys. It would have been good to have seen temporary build-outs being proposed, to enable bus stop bypasses, rather than have buses conflicting with cycles.
There’s some other compromises along the route, such as where existing shared-use paths are incorporated into the scheme. This tends to be where there’s a limited space, without making more significant changes to the road layout.
There’s also questions around how well the proposed section through the gyratory will work, particularly if the timing of the lights are anything like what they are now. This is a particularly challenging section to address, without making significant changes to the road layout, so whatever was proposed was going to be compromised.
But when?
Now that’s the question. These proposals would be a significant improvement on the current situation, but when will the changes happen? With the recent similar scheme on Chester Road, Trafford Council have demonstrated they can turn things around quickly when they try.
Equally, the current improvements on Kingsway which have been in development for at least nine years also demonstrate how glacial pace can be.
Meanwhile, people wanting to cycle along the A56 are left in limbo, with the missing cones not getting replaced and no word on what’s happening with the interim scheme. Do they risk their lives, cycling next to three lanes of speeding traffic, or return to public transport or even a car?
Dom Cycling 