Almost 800 Salford residents have put forward suggestions for making the city more pedestrian and cycle friendly to manage social distancing.
Salford already had plans in place to deliver £60 million of walking and cycling improvements and has secured another £500,000 from Transport for Greater Manchester to implement temporary measures.
The city has seen a huge increase in cycling and walking during the coronavirus ‘lockdown’ and is keen to make sure it continues. A consultation Safe Streets Save Lives attracted 4000 visits and 800 individual responses.
Councillor Antrobus, Lead Member for Planning and Sustainable Development thanked everyone for their suggestions which range from adding new cycle lanes to clearing overgrown vegetation to create more space on footpaths.
“We’ve seen huge benefits from people switching to walking and cycling recently and we want to encourage people to continue to do that as much as possible. We’ve seen clear roads and a fantastic improvement in air quality while people have been staying at home and exercising in our parks and walking and cycling routes across the city. Now we need to protect that as much as we can while balancing it with people returning to work,” he said.
“We will prioritise a list of short, medium and long-term measures for further discussion with the public but in the mean-time we are putting measures in place,” he said.
Councillor Jim Cammell Executive Support and Walking & Cycling Champion added “We have installed 1600 metres of temporary protected cycle lanes on Liverpool Street between Albion Way and Oldfield Rd and closed the left turn lane on to Trinity Way from Irwell Street to provide another 200 metres of footpath for pedestrians.
“We’re looking at where we can remove barriers or obstructions for cyclists, where we can move bus stops to create more space and how we can manage footpaths where people may congregate. People have asked for more bike storage in some areas so we will address that and we will be installing signs across the city to advise people on how to share space safely.”
The suspended bus lane on Eccles Old Road near Salford Royal Hospital will also be reinstated and the council is working on a number of traffic Modal Filters to restrict through traffic in the Trinity and Islington neighbourhood to create a more pleasant walking and cycling environment.
Details of the plans can be seen at https://
