Secrets of The Motorway - A57M
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
- #manchester #driving #cars #infrastructure #motorway
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Today we address Manchester's inner city or urban motorway, the A57M. It's probably best avoided, and to be honest with all the (bloody) trams who needs to drive anyway. It's a delight of 60s design which becomes very apparent in this video as we explore dodgy slip roads and missing carriageways.
In this series I aim to explore what our motorway network is hiding. As we drive along at 70mph..ish...we simply just wouldn't be aware of what we're missing. This series will uncover some of the hidden secrets our motorways have to offer. - Авто та транспорт
I can say as an experienced and frequent user of the Sackville Street junction, that back in the days when the limit was 50mph, coming off there was *checks dictionary definition* fucking terrifying.
Lift-off oversteer may have happened there in my old 306 pug...
Wasn't it just. I used to hate it. I'd end up getting in a tiz and getting lost.afterwards in the one way streets
Joining the road with no visibility and half the vehicles on the motorway pulling to the left lane to leave, when you’re trying to pull over into the idle lane, absolutely insane.
@@lolliepants Yes, it did. Also terrifying understeer in a Vauxhall Nova on its comedy pram tyres. At sometime in the 90s. 😆
Imagine doing that today while everyone is texting
You forgot to mention that the entire length of the A57M is now a 30mph road.
I was just about to type the exact same thing
Me too!
And if you try and drive it a 30 the car behind tries to climb onto your rear bumper. Mind you, any faster than 30 and you can't make the Eastbound exit at Sackville Street to get onto Upper Brook Street.
Begs the question - why on earth is it designated as a motorway ?
Crazy!
You forgot to mention that the abandoned slip road is where the scene in Life on Mars where John Simm gets hit by a car
It is indeed, great local knowledge there Sir 👍
HeHe!! Love that line John ... "From Manchester to another bit of Manchester!" Got to love road planners.
I've had a good week. Now I've had a great week, because it's Secrets of the Motorway Day!
When I was at UMIST in the 90's, I heard (from an engineering prof) that the unbuilt sliproad would have gone straight through one of the university buildings as someone miscalculated the angles. Only when they started building it did anyone realise.
Worth noting that the Sackville Street sliproads are of course almost always rainsoaked for extra entertainment. Absolutely terrifying in an overloaded 90's student car.
You forgot the best part about the Sackville Street Junction: the abandoned slip road was because, when it was being built, the road it leads onto was a one-way street. In the opposite direction. (It became bidirectional in the mid-2010s.)
I'd love to have seen the person's face when they realised that. So if you've ever made a mistake at work, be thankful it wasn't as big as that.
Ah well.. that's a bit of a myth and I nearly fell into the trap... the road would have been widened to a dual carriageway rather than left as what we see today.
The Manchester University maths building/tower (which is now demolished) was built the wrong way round. With the fire exit on Oxford Road and the main entrance facing the opposite way. When the building was replaced in the naughties it was corrected. The most relevant connection to Sackville Street would be Vimto or Alan Turing
I lived in Manchester for the best part of a decade, getting on to the A57M on that short junction, with most of the main traffic pulling left and having zero visibility was always a twitchy bum moment. It was a 50mph limit back then too. All good fun, but I don't miss trying to join the main carriageway there at all.
Oasis on the piano to finish the mancunian episode was a nice touch.
Those slip roads are basically how every slip road in cities here in the U.S. Since we decided to plow through cities with motorways some of them are super short. Or have sharp curves, e.g. Exit 349 on I-76 in Pennsylvania.
Highway guidlines in US have been massivly overhauled starting in 80s to 90s. Anything built between WWll and 70's is considered obsolete. An exit near me on a parkway now has a giant sign saying SLOW DOWN 10MPH. Super short, tight exit. That kind of thing can't be done anymore. They only put up the new sign last year!
I think the A6 London Road slip onto the A635M was closed during the infamous Mancunian Way Sinkhole that happened back in 2016, to reduce traffic around it. They never got round to reopening the sliproad once it got fixed.
The slip road that ended in the air just above Princess Street and Brook Street (now mostly hidden by the Circle Square multistorey car park) would have sent traffic the wrong way down Princess Street (a one-way street) had it been completed, which explains why the Sackville Street junction shortly after is such a compact and downright dangerous mess.
The eastbound slip road from A6 London Road was always a restricted access.. This happened just after the flyover was built over the A6 and nothing to do with the infamous 2015 sinkhole that appeared further along the carriageway influencing the decision to disallow vehicles to head that way.
The Sackville Street junction is chaos because you also have to join a slip road that has traffic entering the motorway, people who want to go straight on to the Wilmslow exit whilst you go from 50 to 20mph to go fully left for the universities. Used to be my daily commute and I was terrified every time.
I've been horribly ill today and feeling shitty but it's always a good day when Auto Shenanigans uploads.
Get well soon.
I used to live right next to this motorway and there's a couple of things you missed. To the south west of the Downing street junction there's something that looks like an electrical substation. It's actually an entrance to a tunnel system going under the centre of Manchester over to Salford. It was supposed to be in case of nuclear war but ended up being used to house a phone exchange.
The other thing is that under the A57M flyover near the footpath next to Princess street there's a plaque because the flyover received an award from the concrete society.
The Guardian telephone exchange was always meant to be a telephone exchange. It, along with Anchor in Birmingham and Kingsway in London, were built to keep national communications going in the event of nuclear war.
I think it's not used as that any more since the 2004 fire showed that it was a single point of failure for a large part of the local phone infrastructure
This is the sort of detail we need.
@@mrhumbug5353 Spot on Guardian was always an Exchange, still had last time I was down there the old Strowger exchange frame. This is one of the Vent covers/chamber entries across from Dial House, Chapel St, Salford maps.app.goo.gl/8hdxpZ7TGfUNnZen9
I was disappointed not to hear mention of the concrete society award or the skate park under part of the flyovers. Was a bit of a homeless camp under that last time I went under too
There also used to be a flyover at the Deansgate end of the Manky way that connected to Chester road. Was still there in the late 80’s when I was a motorcycle courier in Manchester but must have been taken down when they built the underpass going to Regent Road. 👍🏻
Random fact. The last series of Peaky blinders was filmed under the castlefield viaduct. You can see the overhead catenary for the electric trains on the bridge going over the garrison pub
Bit of an error that1
@AutoShenanigans you only notice if your looking for it.
At 8:05 directly above the bowstring bridge are the buildings of Manchester's first railway station: Liverpool Road Station on the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened in 1830. Now part of the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry. Well worth a visit.
This is becoming my new Heatbeat/Antiques Roadshow theme tunes....It's Sunday!!!😅
Seemed like a slightly meta episode this week, with tram based out takes included, a quick reflected view of the camera, a random sunken narrow boat in evidence at around 6:18, and those two hi-vis guys interrupting the sign-off! All part of the special Auto-Shenanigans magic of course! I doubt I will ever need this level of knowledge of the A57M again, but anyway roll on the next one...😆
'meta' wtf are you talking about?
@@mariemccann5895 candid seems more appropriate than meta
@@mariemccann5895Good question
@@mariemccann5895 meta means ''associated items'' indirectly.
20 seconds of a mildly irritated man standing in front of a tram is gold we're all here for
The A57M does allow you to bypass slower cross city traffic when getting to Oxford Road and east, and the other direction though the A57 itself does clog up westbound with queues forming on the A57M. You can pretty much give that traffic report any weekday evening.
love the piano renditino of half the world away at the end
John - Your videos are bloody brilliant, and you deserve a lot more than 108K subscribers!
Nice one, thanks for watching!
Totally agree! I watch every goddam episode as soon as it comes out
You didn't mention that those on and off ramps are so batshit crazy that they had to change the speed limit and set it to 30 mph to avoid accidents. Also, being within a proximity to universities, I often see drunk students getting on that motorway on foot and trying to walk down it to get wherever the navigation system tells them
That’s not the reason it was dropped to 30mph; they did that for the (frankly, scientifically wrong) “reduced emissions” reason. The same as with the M602 now being 60mph, there’s a school of thought reducing the speed of traffic reduces the emissions affecting the area. It’s flawed thinking in most cases, because cars cruising at 60-70mph use less fuel than those at 30-40mph. And slower vehicles means you have more vehicles in a given area for longer than if they were travelling faster.
@@DubStumight not be officially, but "emissions reasons" seems to be a catch all to do whatever the fuck they want. Saying "it's dangerous" might require them doing some actual work to fix it.
It was more “fun” when it was 50. Strange what they waited decades To reduce the speed until cars were more economical, safer and produced less emissions. Fucking councils.
@@DubStuit was a road safety reason originally. There was also signs up after the fatal crash that the limit was in place because of an incomplete safety barrier. www.manchester.gov.uk/news/article/8951/change_coming_to_mancunian_way_speed_limit_in_bid_to_improve_road_safety
@@DubStuActually 30-40mph will be the most efficient (highest mpg) for an internal combustion engine car. Still a ball ache. And contrary to Drakeford's 20mph.
Ah, here we are! I use this motorway regularly to get from my home in Saddleworth to my job in Trafford. It's chaos (expecially the Chester Road roundabout) but it's still quicker than driving through town or, god forbid, picking through the maze of streets through Hulme.
The slip road at Mayfield Depot was closed a while back following a sink hole closing half the A635, but I could swear it was reopened and then closed again when redevelopment of the depot started. But I could be wrong.
The cutting at Chester Road used to be a rickety old flyover which linked up to what was the last bit of Regent Road, under the Castlefield viaduct. When the cutting was put in, it was immediately shrunk down to one lane in each direction as the original Regent Road hadn't been widened, which was utter chaos. Since then, they were able to use another arch, it was all widened out and now we have a humongous junction linking the Mancunian Way, Regent Road, Castlefield Road and Trinity Way, which if anything is even more chaos...
Absolute nightmare of a thing that ruins the southern end of the city centre. Deansgate and Hulme feel totally cut off from one another and the weird hinterland round the uni sports centre never feels welcoming cos this giant concrete bridge is towering over you.
You've got the Ordsall Chord in the outro there, too - George Osborne's 100 million pound gift to the city of a useless bit of track. Two trains an hour because nobody thought about how to run more trains into Piccadilly and Victoria without having more space.
This little guy was MEANT to be feeding the M67. With that bit unbuilt lump of motorway joining them, of course.
I mean, not that I'm bitter that nobody can get into and out of Sheffield at all and that two of Britain's biggest cities are joined together by a dirt track, some sheep, and a closed road at the first sign of frost.
The eastbound A635 slip road has never been in use as far as I know.
It was used as the filming location for Sam Tyler's car accident in the BBC series Life On Mars.
Nice Granada symbol at the end.
+100 points for the Granada logo.
Funny to see the Manchester rain arrive just as you were signing off... they used to reckon at the Old Trafford cricket ground that if you could see the Derbyshire hills it was going to rain and if you couldn't... it was already raining! 🙂
Something about the Downing Street junction of the A57M - back in 2006 a police officer got hit by a car on the sliproad and inexplicably woke up in 1973! Was he mad, in a coma, or back in time?
A boring fact is that when he woke up in 1973 the Mancunian way was being built, but in fact by 1973 it was already built.
I think it’s also worthy of note (that 20 years ago, not sure now) the Sackville Street junction exits as the entering traffic is filtering creating a chaotic experience of trying to filter off and on in the same lane
You've never driven through Birmingham or around Coventry?
@@Technaudio I wish I could say you are correct but I’ve experienced horrors in those city’s and more
Blink and you might miss the "Granada" logo at the very end of the outro. I thought Jon might taken a look at the former studios and their return to use as a studio complex.
I can barely cope with the excitement another episode of Auto Shenanigans brings...🎉
Nice one, thanks for watching!
I'm sure you could have stretched your video a little longer if you had mentioned the name "Mancunian way was chosen by 5 schoolchildren following a competition who had to share the prize. The design was so innovative that a documentary was made by the Cement and Concrete association. The Mancunian way was going to be named something else entity other suggestions were 'Highway 64', 'President Kennedy Way', and 'Busby Way'. The roundabout space underneath the motorway were originally designed to be miniature parks. Over two thousand trees were planted under the motorway but most died though lack of light. Though the years it's been the subject of photography exhibitions, used as a backdrop for film and TV, including 24 Hour Party People and Life On Mars and has even lent it's name to a song on the 2006 Take That album Beautiful World. It's name has also been adopted as a way to describe the city's attitude and outlook. The Mancunian Way, Manchester's Highway in the Sky...
You should have driven along it during rush hour and filmed the suicidal lottery of getting on and off the Mancunian Way on the crazy close and tight junctions: Though congratulations on managing to visit Manchester on one of the very rare rainy day. Usually, all year round it is over 20C and sunny here in Manchester.
We wish.
You've never driven through Birmingham or around Coventry?
Parts of the supports of the motorway are painted white, but not all are. This is because when the new university of UMIST was being opened by the Queen, it was decided that the grey concrete was ugly.
So it was painted white. But only the parts that could be seen by the Queen during her visit were thus painted.
So that's why bits are white, and boots aren't.
I think it wins the award for lowest semi-permanent speed limit of a motorway. The 30mph limit has been in place for more than 2 years I seem to recall - as the “barriers aren’t safe” with no sign of them being fixed.
The barriers have been replaced
Also in a weird accident in the late 80s / early 90s a truck came over the barrier and landed on a taxi on the road underneath 😮 and also a giant sinkhole appeared at one end a few years ago
I'm from Australia, never been to the UK in my life but I really enjoy your videos and find them fascinating! You're like the Geoff Marshall of motorways (or maybe Geoff is the Auto Shenanigans of railways?)
Great video again Jon. If you ever have an hour to waste, try driving from the centre of Manchester to Stockport at 5pm. It's only 6 miles you can cycle it faster! I shall resist the urge to moan about HS2 again...
As for what I get up to, this last week 3 points and a fine because of a very badly designed junction. It's not over!
I work in Stockport. I am permanently bemused seeing queues from the North in the morning, queues from the South in the afternoon. Fortunately I travel in the opposite direction both times.
use the Hazel Grove Park and Ride ?
@@highpath4776 how will that help when the A6 is gridlocked. My wife and I gave up on driving it, we just catch the train instead.
@@hairyairey it was meant as a bit of a dig that the park and ride is for buses while the barely served Hazel Grove Train Station is a good walk away
I've done this more times then I'd like to...
Love the piano at the end - sounds like a beautiful interpretation of Half the World Away? Do you have details on the artist please?
1:59 - You better be careful standing there; you could get run over by a Vauxhall Cavalier and end up waking up in 1973 working for Gene Hunt...
One damn traffic jam from end to end! They spent one year upgrading the Salford end in which one firm went into administration to relieve congestion and there is still congestion at the Salford end.
Ahh the G TV logo at the end was a nice touch!
hi Jon, great a57 review and amazing to see you at work making it. hopefully yelling at you from the car wasn't too disturbing...
If you're the same guy, I was flying the drone at the time and couldn't really let go of the controls to wave.
I'm pretty sure Google Maps used to also label that flyover as the A635(M), though it doesn't now.
Though it may seem insignificant and definitely below par for a motorway, the mancunian way is a vital link. You should see the chaos it causes when its closed!
This is the best video I've ever seen about anything
"I love motorways !" Haha. Get that on a t-shirt. Or a cup, maybe.
there's a guy in Manchester that does videos of tunnels, burried rivers , dissused raill tunnels etc called Martin Zero, you should hook up with him some time, that would be wicked, sweet awesome
Yeah I know of Martin Zero!
The A66 running through Middlesbrough is similar to this. Built on a flyover that demolished half the original town centre in its construction. At least that has a 50mph limit with decent slip roads.
When I was a student studying civil engineering we where told a student engineer noticed one of the ghost slips would make cars go the wrong way down a one way street. The moral was we should always speak up if we spot somthing wrong. Thing is had the other motorways been built the the slip would have worked.
5:50 I couldn't agree more.
The idea of including the blooper reel into the main video is just... funny 😄
Do you think there's a parallel universe somewhere where all the proposed motorways of the 60s were built and the is absolute traffic chaos in the UK akin to L.A. at rush hour?
Love this one Jon. I enjoy the urban ones because you get the old / disused/ repurposed architecture as well plus a bit o' social history thrown in.
Nice one 👍🏻
One of the reasons I love going to Manchester is the chance to wander around that area where he is and see the modern structures and the old buildings from its industrial past almost intertwine and come together. A blend of the old and the new times which shouldn't work yet Manchester manages to pull it off. Absolutely my favourite city to visit of all time.
2:05 - just down the way from the Foundry. I've driven this a lot doing deliveries to some locations I can't talk about for security reasons!
Love that Manky Way. Back in the *0s, the 'Deansgate Interchange' was a roundabout that I loved to screw my bike around. Strange, red tarmac that was so slippy when wet - such fun. Odder than that was the bridge that crossed the roundabout joining Chester Road to Deansgate. Lashed together from a few girders and pretty steep too. Simpler times.
The bit between Deansgate-Castlefield and Cornbrook is probably the single busiest section for trams so... good choice of filming location!
I always thought as a very young boy before the underpass at deans gate was built, wasn't there a funny 'temporary' flyover thing there?
Love the lingering visual gag on the road layout of the sackville street sliproads
That’s easy! The motorway starts from where it begins at each end ha ha!
My Mums partner did the ground work for the car park where the slip road was he didn't know it was a Motorway despite the blue signs.
It was helpful to see how the Mancunian Way ended up the way it did.
Back in the early 90s I worked on the Salford extension as an engineer. What an eye opener! Every so often you'd get some Manc scally kids walking along the carriageway with a trolley full of stuff. Any old iron? You bet!
You missed the award plaque on the Sackville road junction from The Concrete Society.
Another great video. one extra point. The Castlefield Viaduct was also access to Manchester Central passenger station, which saw passenger trains to London St. Pancras and is now the exhibition centre there (also formerly known as GMex)
Hi John, great video as usual, but you didn't mention the flyover bridge that used to cross the Chester Road (A56) roundabout before the rebuilding.
Made of what appeared to be sub-standard Meccano it was narrow, only available for cars, and vibrated dramatically if taken at over the speed limit. It was known as the "big dipper" amongst other names.
An engineering student I knew used to dump random bolts beside the supports, to confuse the road maintenance guys
I've driven a double decker bus over that flyover many times in the early 90s when it was alowed. If you drove fast enough on the way out of town there was a dip in the road at the bottom of the ramp and you could quite easily see passengers towards the back leave the seat with some fantastic air time 😁
😄
I appreciate that the UK hasn't got a lot of space, when compared to Germany. Looking at the German and the UK's slip-roads you're amazed how compact the UK's are and marvel at how there aren't more accidents on them! These roads on the A57M just highlight the problem!
It's probably worth noting almost every UK motorway has slip roads almost identical, or in fact better, to German ones! It's super rare to have sharp turns on UK slip roads, whereas Germany often has 90 degree turns on theirs. This video just happens to show some anomalously small and tight slip roads.
@@climbthatmountainuk I have two of those super rare ones both literrally after each other Jct 3 and Jct 4 on the M621, 294 feet & 304 feet in diameter (approx). It is these that maybe colouring my thinking!
The western end of the Mancunian Way is very close to Salford. Hence you could almost say it starts Salford and ends in central Manchester.
From 1969-1971 I was a student based in central Manchester and rode a motorbike from the Didsbury and Withington areas into college and back using part of the Mancunian Way. Then from 1972-1974 I drove a van then a car from Northenden to Oldham using part of the Mancunian Way. The reason I used the Mancunian Way was because even though it was only short it saved a lot of time than waiting to cross that part of the city centre by any of the alternatives.
This was at a time when the current ring road around Manchester hadn't been constructed. Part of the time I travelled from home in north east England the M62 hadn't been built so I had to go through central Leeds then Huddersfield. Riding a motorbike through Oldham and over the Pennines is the snow was interesting.
Great Northern warehouse- (Jon wishing the railway niche wasnt taken again ;) )
Theres a chap trading as Flecky Bennet who does ghost tours in the undercroft of it where there are old air raid shelters and the lifts for the canal. A great scare trip for Halloween but also an impressive space to see.
Those on/off ramps to upper brook st were crazy at the old speed limit. I used to use them all the time at uni going from my rental off upper brook street to go flying at raf woodvale near southport with manchester University air squadron.
Secrets of the motorway & railway history too although there was no mention of the former Central Station
I think "What Difference Does it Make" by The Smiths might have been an appropriate tune as clearly 'it makes none' now that its a 30mph road. Does Mark Drakeford's brother work for the council there?
Hiya. Love your videos. When I was much younger. I was really into the motorway network. Use to collect maps and draw motorway junctions when bored at school lol.
I got an idea for ya unless you have already thought about it. Defunct motorways and what they use to be like. Bit like A102(M) or the A41(M) now known as the Tring Bypass
I often play your motorway videos while I eat, but they are so interesting that I cant even eat while watching it 😅😅
Nice one, thanks for watching!
It would have been optional for a M602 motorway to go straight through Central Manchester just like the M8 Motorway that goes through Glasgow.
But the A57(M) Mancunian Way isn’t really classed as a motorway but more of an expressway. Just like the A64(M) and A58(M) in Leeds and A38(M) Aston Expressway in Birmingham.
The team scene reminds me of the Blues Brothers
Is the outro music a piano rendition of Half the World Away by Oasis? If it is, I appreciate the nice and subtle homage to one of the greatest sitcoms ever, the Royle Family, of course set in Manchester. Another of my favourites is Ideal, which is also set in Manchester! You have good taste, John!
Psycho Paaauuul haha awesome I'd almost forgot about Ideal.
Song by Oasis, used in a sitcom based in Manchester... it couldn't be more fitting :D
Was about to post that I recognised that song.
Great episode one of those quirky little things..
Although the A57(M) technically goes down the east facing slips at Downing St it makes perfect sense to use the number on the A635(M) bit when you consider how easily confused some people can get.
Great but your very slightly more excited than normal. Please keep the tone to the normal dull level. Your videos are the best sleep remedy I’ve ever found. Love, a loyal subscriber.
Will try to be more dull.
On one hand, when it's flowing well this is a great way of getting to Piccadilly from the west. On the other, the short sliproads and flawed design meaning most vehicles joining from Deansgate for the inner ring road need to cross three lanes of traffic to do so in around 100yds make it a nightmare.
Yea with the new Regent Rd/Trinity Way layout a central slip road would make more sense, but to make that change would be chaos and more than the council would want to spend. They could just go up Chester Rd to Water St as well
It takes no small amount of talent (and hard work no doubt) to make a series that should be mind-numbingly dull turn out to be strangely compelling viewing. Thanks!
It should also be noted that Great Northern Warehouse is about to be redeveloped again. The cinema, casino, and car park are going and it'll play host to apartments and, in the second phase, a brick clad skyscraper at the back, by Beetham Tower. You get bonus points for that beautiful Granada sting at the end, though.
That's depressing to hear. There's decent access with the current setup for people to see the architecture of the building and its a semi public space. So many apartments being thrown up now :(.
@@craigwelsh Tbf, it's barely used. It's half empty, the cinema is only open on certain days, and the casino is tacky as hell. The redevelopment is really going to lift the whole thing. Right now it's dead.
@@KeithAndrewPGbizThe cinema would get a lot more customers if it wasn't so run down. The Printworks regularly gets busy so it's a useful alternative option, but the seats are so worn and filthy that nobody wants to visit.
@@Croz89 That's because they know it's closing.
That white and yellow bollard 2:28 is forever getting crushed as cars can't brake in time and crash into it.
I used to wonder why they didn't put it on a pedestal behind the crash barrier? Would have stopped it having to be replaced all the time. 🤦♂🤦♂
Thanks John - your outro definitely shows the amazing infrastrucutre in the centre of Mancunium ... the Romans never built like that but the Victorians definitely did! 🤣
what ? its fake ?
When visiting Manchester, it certainly feels like your stepping back in time. I think they've only recently discovered the internet up there.
@@AutoShenanigans Agreed it is of a different time compared to London (and Poss Leeds) , but I find the whole geography confusing. I think many places changed from green to residential to commercial to residential , add in the roads , it always feels Like I am going west from Piccadilly Station (by road) when I am going south , and going south from Victoria when I am heading east (by Road). (and sometimes I have to head West to go North from there).
The slip road you mention at 2:05 was in use until recently. The area is currently being redeveloped. On a side note, it was featured in the tv series’Life on Mars’ and was where Sam Tyler was ran over and killed
Lived in Greater Manchester for over 20 years and still finding out new stuff about it.... As for those trams bloody things nearly got killed by one the other week lol 🤣🤣🤣
I'm not even from the UK but I keep watching these because of how amusing your presentation is
Nice one, thanks for watching!
A fun (not really) story about Mancunian Way and its un-numbered tightly-spaced junctions is that after taking the wrong junction and getting lost on three separate visits to Manchester, I finally dropped my longstanding opposition to using satnav.
you lose your mental map on this road. at the high level it bears no relation to the roads running south under it
On the east bound slip road off Chester Road roundabout, there is a footpath alongside (Great Jackson Street i think its called) where people not paying attention can walk straight onto the motorway. You do see the odd lost looking pedestrian or cyclist every now and then.
From Mrs 6thDayBlue for putting up with our awful roads here in Greater Manchester x
Nice one guys, thanks a lot.
Watching these videos, I know now why I kept getting lost trying to find my way around the UK by road.
regarding the design of the Sackville Street junction, this was probably a combination of it pre-dating modern safety standards (the motorway was planned in the 1950s), the fact it's an urban motorway, hence lower general standard of engineering required to fit it into a smaller space than a regular motorway, and the fact it's a local authority motorway rather than a trunk route
basically the same set of reasons why A58(M)/A64(M) in Leeds has some frankly terrifying junctions
That footbridge looks slippy af.
All raised urban motorways earn an instant dislike. However your videos give a whole new insight and perhaps I am now beginning to like them. Great stuff Jon. 👏👏👍😀
Great stuff. Someone needs to do videos on extant but unused high level railways structures and their histories. I just need to find a UA-camr with great presenting skills. Oh wait. FOUND ONE!
You missed the pedestrian crossing on a motorway. It's not there any more, but you can still see it on Google Streetview if you go back in time. (2019 or older.) Westbound on-slip at Medlock Street Junction, quite a distance beyond the start of motorway restrictions. Light-controlled so in theory you should be fairly safe. There were railings leading pedestrians to it from the north, under the fly-over.
Only place I've ever heard of where random pedestrians could stop motorway traffic by pressing a button.
You comment made me notice that the normal road map still shows an icon for traffic lights being there, even though there aren't any any more.
The roads around inner Manchester are insane. And that stretch when I have been doing work in that area is a bain.
I always love it when you put it into historical building plan context
It’s bit of a strange motorway, almost like someone saw it on a model railway and didn’t understand that models always compact things. It’s like in Newcastle where the junctions are so narrow and tight coming off the bridge you swear you’re going to crash if you go any quicker than about 20mph 🙄
I am guessing they thought of ‘doing an M4’ but through Manchester, then once it became infeasible, they sort of pretended that what they built was actually what they meant to build all the time and “wasn’t just a fragment of a larger plan, no way, no sir, nope, look away, nothing to see here…” 🤔
I’ve had work up that way many times in the past, and it always struck me as a bit of an expensive folly in some respects, not unlike some of the roads in and around London that seem to be out of place as they are a hangover from the abandoned road system from the 60s. As such, rather than solve the problem, it seemed to just shuffle the traffic jams a bit further along to the east or west than actually solve a problem per se, though the later underpasses probably have undoubtedly helped improve it greatly 🤔
I rather like Manchester and I think the link road was a good idea in principle. I think it has been helped by the subsequent road developments further out which have helped eased much of the east-west through traffic away from the city centre in the end, so although it is a bit ‘Mickey mouse’ in places, arguably in the end it is now able to serve its purpose 🤷🏻♂️🙂
Cheers John, great fun as ever 😎🍀👍🍻