"Are we genuinely expecting this to help?": Questions over 10mph plan for Manchester street

"We are struggling to understand as ward councillors how reducing the speed limit alleviates pollution from standstill traffic for a large part of the day"

Plans to slow cars down to 10mph to discourage motorists from driving on a key city centre route have been met with scepticism.

The proposals, currently being evaluated by Manchester City Council, form part of the new ‘investment-led’ clean air zone (CAZ). The new CAZ seeks to improve air quality at some major city centre roads by easing traffic congestion.

One of those key routes is the A34 Quay Street, from its junction with Peter Street and Deansgate down to Gartside Street. Last week, a report revealed that one option for doing so included traffic calming measures, such as speed bumps and single lane filters, to ensure cars around Quay Street would usually drive at around 10mph.

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However, a 10mph speed limit could not be enforced by council bosses, as it is not something they have the legal power to do so. The idea has been met with doubt by one councillor, who represents the area and sits on the council’s environment scrutiny committee.

That is Coun Anthony McCaul, Labour, probed the new measures at last week’s scrutiny meeting. He said: “We are struggling to understand as ward councillors how reducing the speed limit alleviates pollution from standstill traffic for a large part of the day. That’s a concept we are still trying to get into our heads.

“We have seen modelling in the past where what the modelling expected did not happen. Are we genuinely expecting this to alleviate air pollution on Quay Street?”

In reply, Oliver Baldwin from AECOM — a company which undertakes air quality and traffic modelling for Transport for Greater Manchester — said: “The measures we have modelled are not on Quay Street but are on roads that run adjacent to it. They are Gartside and Lower Byrom Street.

“They are typically lower traffic roads and where we would want to reduce through traffic for those locations. We are targeting a series of measures that would make those routes less attractive from a through traffic perspective while maintaining local access.

“That will have a knock on effect of slightly reducing the flow on Quay Street itself. We have modelled a scenario where what it does is create a smoother traffic flow on Quay Street which results in slightly improved conditions on that route.”

That led Coun McCaul to finish the exchange by identifying what he believed to be the real issue for Quay Street’s infamous traffic — and it is something Manchester council cannot do anything about.

He added: “The theory sounds good but when you actually go in practice the majority of the issue is caused by the traffic signalling in Salford at the back end of Quay Street.

“We will always get traffic on those side streets and on Quay Street because we have made Deansgate one-way and put a bus gate in, coincidentally driven by Salford [council]. Until we look at it as a network rather than a single road and until we get down there and look day-in-and-day-out, the modelling is good but it needs to be proven in real life.”

Earlier in the same meeting, Coun Tracey Rawlins, the executive member for transport said that the 10mph measures had ‘not yet been determined’, and were subject to change and a consultation.