Commuters urged to plan ahead in the New Year
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Travellers are being urged to plan ahead following the festive break as some essential roadworks take place across Salford and Manchester city centres from early January.
The works, which are being undertaken by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), developers in Salford, Salford City Council and Manchester City Council, are a part of a wider regeneration programme for the transport network. Work is also being carried out to help support planned development by installing essential services such as water and power for new homes and businesses.
While these works are carried out, anyone travelling is being advised to plan their journey and allow a little extra time. TfGM has created a travel advice page to help commuters plan their travel.
Details of the works are:
London Road and Fairfield Street/Whitworth Street junction: From Wednesday 3 January, TfGM will start work to improve capacity at the junction of London Road and Fairfield Street. Once completed this work will help reduce congestion and improve journey times for hundreds of bus services as well as thousands of motorists each day. All pedestrian crossing facilities will be upgraded and a new cycle lane is being introduced on Fairfield Street. The work will take approximately three months to complete.
New Bailey Street (outside Salford Central Rail Station): From Tuesday 2 to Sunday 14 January, New Bailey Street will be closed to traffic in both directions for sewer connection works to support new residential development being built by Select Developments. The road will also be resurfaced during the closure by contractors working on behalf of English Cities Fund.
Sackville Street (near the junction with Portland Street): From Wednesday 3 January, Sackville Street will be reduced to one lane from Major Street to Portland Street for approximately three weeks to enable sewer connections for a new development to be installed. These works are being carried out by Manchester City Council.
Blackfriars Street and Trinity Way junction: From Monday 15 January work will begin to upgrade the junction between Blackfriars Street and Trinity Way. The work, which is being done by Eric Wright Civil Engineering on behalf of Salford City Council is designed to improve pedestrian crossing facilities, including new DDA compliant dropped kerbs and tactile paving. The work will also benefit motorists with improvements to traffic light timings. Traffic management restrictions will be in place and phased lane closures will be required to allow the work to be safely carried out. These works are expected to continue until May 2018.
Details of all the work taking place from January are available on the TfGM website where there is a dedicated travel advice page to help commuters plan their journey and make travel easier. Maps showing where the work is taking place are also available online.
TfGM’s Transport and Event Planning Lead, John Fryer, said: “We are taking action to minimise the effect to the transport network but we know it will still be very busy, particularly as many people return to work.
“Commuters can play their part by following our advice: plan ahead, be prepared, and think about all your travel choices.
“If you can travel at a quieter time, or in a different way – by bus, tram, bike, foot or a mixture – it can make a massive improvement not just to your journey but to people who simply don’t have a choice.”
Councillor Angeliki Stogia, Executive Member for Environment and Skills for Manchester City Council, said: “Manchester is a growing, thriving city and it's important that we have the infrastructure to support this success. Essential short term works will underpin this in the long term."
Councillor Roger Jones, executive support member for transport, from Salford City Council, added: “We have worked with the developers and our partners to co-ordinate these works as much as possible to minimise the impact”.
For information on public transport across Greater Manchester visit www.tfgm.com, call 0161 244 1000 (7am-8pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am-8pm at weekends and bank holidays) or follow @OfficialTfGM on Twitter.