Deansgate Labour Your voice in Manchester City Centre
The City Centre Transport Strategy was heard by the Council’s Economy Scrutiny Committee last week before being submitted to the Council’s Executive later this month. It has been developed in partnership with Salford City Council and Transport for Greater Manchester.
This strategy sets out how people will travel into and out of, and move within our city centre, over the next 20 years. It aims to improve our city’s public transport network, reducing the number of trips by car, and increasing trips by walking and riding bikes. Reducing emissions and improving our air quality are key goals of the strategy.
As your local Councillors, we lobbied hard for an open and inclusive consultation process, and to see co-design included where possible. This included an early and open ‘conversation’ exercise in 2018 with over 3,700 responses, a series of deep-dive workshops last year, and a full public consultation in the autumn of 2020 with over 2,400 responses.
The consultation showed particularly strong support for the vision for our city centre as “a well-connected, zero carbon city centre at the heart of the North, offering residents, employees, and visitors a great place to work, live and visit.”
It includes seven key ambitions, which are:
- walking being the main way of getting around the city centre
- a cleaner, greener, and less congested city centre
- more cycling
- better public transport connections
- reduced car parking, but keeping some available and making it smarter for those who need it
- low carbon deliveries of goods to people and businesses, including for example via cargo bikes
- embracing innovation.
- a new safe cycling route between Piccadilly Station and Victoria Station, Victoria to Oxford Road Station, and across to Piccadilly – called the City Centre Triangle
- a new GM bike hire scheme, with docking stations, with Phase 1 launching in the city centre
- improving pavements and crossings to make walking easier, safer, and more comfortable.
And, there are many more things like improving city centre Metrolink frequency and expanding pedestrianised areas, which are at different stages in the planning and funding processes. We will continue to provide updates as things progress.
We welcome comments on this and as specific projects come forward – please do get in touch.