Traffic chaos in city centre
ONGOING ROADWORKS BLAMED FOR COMMUTER CHAOS
TRAFFIC chaos gripped Manchester city centre last night and was blamed on ongoing roadworks.
Frustrated commuters vented their fury on social media – with one person on Twitter saying she couldn’t ‘remember the last time it was this bad.’
Another said: “Manchester is an absolute mess tonight.”
Whitworth Street, Portland Street, Princess Street, Great Bridgewater Street and Medlock Street were particularly badly affected.
And there was a similar story at Piccadilly Gardens bus interchange where buses struggled to get out onto Portland Street.
There were also queues of traffic along length of Deansgate which was completely gridlocked at Great Bridgewater Street and Deansgate Locks. Stagecoach said all bus services were operating extremely late with delays averaging 90 minutes.
First Buses calculated a delay of 50 minutes on their V1 and V2 services.
Eventually, due to the severity of the gridlock, the companies diverted buses to avoid the most congested areas.
Both operators apologised profusely to those customers affected.
Metrolink services through the city centre were also disrupted.
In an official tweet, Transport for Greater Manchester blamed the chaos on the fact that Manchester City Council is carrying out roadworks on Princess Road and Medlock Street roundabout.
The work is taking place on the roundabout underneath the Mancunian Way where it meets Princess Road.
The £10m scheme, due to last until next May, includes plans to widen the slip roads on and off the Mancunian Way and replacing the existing roundabout with two branching spur roads to allow traffic from Princess Road into the city centre. A new road is going to be created to provide access onto the Mancunian Way from Princess Road, while the existing network of underpasses will be replaced with new routes for cyclists and pedestrians.
City centre chief, Pat Karney, said: “The council apologises for the delays suffered by those getting to work or trying to get home this evening. We will call the transport managers in first thing in the morning so we can carry out an urgent review into what’s gone wrong.”
Others, such as the Twitter account Bike Riding Ads Esq pointed the finger elsewhere with these comments made to accompany a video of cars parked bumper to bumper along Deansgate: “Andy Burnham, you have to force Manchester City Council to do something about this.
“The vast majority of these cars were single occupancy.
“Deansgate needs to be a shining example of what can be done.
“Manchester should lead the world not follow others’ mistakes.”
Another Tweeter, Rick Box , said: “I just walked down to Castlefield then cycled back up to the Northern Quarter fairly painlessly. Time to stop cars in the city centre.”
Manchester should lead the world not follow others’ mistakes ‘Bike Riding Ads Esq’ on Twitter