Manchester’s advanced cycle network progresses to the next stage

Work on a new 1.6km cycleway linking MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Ordsall and Old Trafford will start next June as part of Salford City Council’s £20m scheme to bring Dutch-style cycle lanes to Manchester’s roads.

The new two-way cycleway will span the length of Trafford Road from the M602 roundabout down to Salford Quays with the aim of improving access to the Quays area. 

As well as improving the road for cyclists, the scheme will also include six new signalised junction crossings for pedestrians along Trafford Road along with trees in place of the central reservation barriers. 

One of the extra pedestrian crossings will be added at the corner of Trafford Road and Broadway, next to the Oasis Academy school, to improve road crossing for schoolchildren. 

Additional pedestrian crossings will also be installed at the junctions with Phoebe Street and Merchant Quays. 

Chris Smith, from the council’s infrastructure team, said the revamping of Trafford Road is necessary due to more and more amenities along the road since its completion in the 1990s, such as the Oasis Academy, a leisure centre, a gym and a number of hotels, shops, restaurants and apartments. 

He said the changes were aimed at making it easier to get transport to the area and making better use of road links between Manchester and Salford. 

Assad Khalid, a design engineer for Urban Vision who specialise in highway regeneration, said the goal was to provide segregated cycling facilities on one of Manchester’s busiest roads. 

Sustainable urban drainage systems in the form of rain gardens will be added at various points along the route to assist with drainage in wet conditions. 

Trafford Road will remain without speed cameras, although three Transport for Greater Manchester traffic cameras will be installed to monitor the flow of traffic.   

Salford secured £20m to bring the scheme forward. Funding comes from Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which has provided £10.5m via its Growth Deal Fund; £4.8m from Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s Cycling and Walking Challenge Fund, with the remainder coming from Salford City Council.

The proposal was the product of Greater Manchester’s Cycling and Walking Commissioner Chris Boardman’s Made to Move report in 2017 which laid out a plan to transform Greater Manchester, and was unanimously adopted by the region’s ten district leaders. 

Mr Boardman, who is a former Olympic gold winning cyclist, has said his goal is for Greater Manchester to become the first city in the UK to have its own joined up cycling and walking network covering 1,800 miles. 

The scheme will begin with enabling works in January 2020 to divert phone, gas and electricity lines before the main work starts in June and is expected to be complete by January 2022.