On Trains & Buses

Road works

Posted on January 14, 2009

Reading time: 2 minutes.

For much of the past year, Cheshire County Council has had contractors replacing and adding traffic lights in different parts of Macclesfield. They have now descended on the heart of the town, and it hasn’t been until then that the project was having much impact on me. Contraflows/single line traffic is now in operation on Churchill Way, taking out a lot of the road capacity and slowing things down further again thanks to the timings on the temporary lights that have been set in place. It might be best for cars, vans, trucks and buses to give the area a wide berth and use alternative routes such as the A523 Silk/London Road instead.

I accept that there might be a need for these works, and we might even get better pedestrian crossing facilities after them, not at all a bad thing. However, they have had an effect on the operation of most bus services operating in the town. In addition, the bus stop next to the junction of Churchill Way and King Edward Street was taken out of use. It’s not a major inconvenience, but it would have been nice to have had it signed as such before I started out on my way to work this morning. Thankfully, a workman let me in on the state of affairs and I found another one around the corner where I could wait in the cold for a bus that was 30 minutes late. My suspicion is that the road traffic conditions had no small part to play in this.

This is all due to continue until the end of March, so our forbearance will be needed for a while yet. I don’t know if it was a general observation, but I was getting the sense that traffic volumes were reduced anyway and, with what is taking place, it might be just as well. At least, it’s not going on as long as the works for returning trams to the streets of Edinburgh, but it is a taste of what Edinburghers are facing.

Update: Someone must have given the council hell over this, or they have been deluged with enquiries as a result (I can’t say that I’d be surprised if either or both did happen) because an FAQ has appeared on the end of the web page describing the works.