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Author Topic: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?  (Read 21996 times)

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Melancholyflower

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #34 on: March 14, 2019, 01:32:41 PM »
Marple is a victim of geography (three roads in and out of the town towards where most people work) and being a nice place to live and bring up kids or retire to.

I see there being two ways to address the traffic situation, one tactical and within the purview of local and regional government. The other is strategic and requires a complete change in mindset from the population and led by central government.

Locally and regionally, we need to invest in mass transit to make it reliable, frequent and affordable. We need to give preference to mass transit over individually-owned vehicles and make public transport more appealing and more convenient. I know that's going to upset people who feel it their inalienable right to use their own car whenever they want, and politicians will be frightened of doing so, but the only way to get people off the roads is to give them a better alternative.

The second way requires a change in thinking. In my (probably completely inaccurate) estimate, I reckon that at least 40% of office jobs can be done remotely, at least some of the time. There are technologies that allow collaboration and communication to be done seamlessly from wherever you are in the world. I wish that the government hadn't invested in the massively expensive HS2 and instead used the billions to run fibre to every property in the country (and require new house-builders to do the same). With investment in virtual and augmented reality and research into collaboration technology, we could get a lot of people (knowledge workers, students, teachers etc) off the roads yet keep them productive. It also requires training for managers and owners to help them develop policies which allow their staff to benefit from remote working yet maintain productivity.

Yes, I understand that many jobs require a physical presence, but many don't, and a change in mindset and investment, would have a far more widely-reaching effect than just locally upgrading public transport.

Maybe I'm a pessimist (perhaps, pragmatist) but I can't really see anyone being brave enough to do either of these things properly.

I can't think of a better summary of the wider issues.

I would add wholehearted agreement that HS2 should be scrapped and work instead should be dedicated to restoring old railway lines that worked so well pre-Beeching, and new ones to cater for housing built since Beeching. Sadly the wholesale massacre of these routes did not protect them from being built over. Marple badly needs a rail link to Stockport and I am pleased to see Steve Gribbon taking up the baton for this.

Also add that a special pet hate of mine is the constant parking on the double yellow lines outside of the Golden Dragon on Hollins Lane. These people are seemingly incapable of parking in the Asda car park and crossing the road to get their takeaways. It causes constant issues for traffic and I have never known it to be policed.

jimblob

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #33 on: March 14, 2019, 11:15:51 AM »
I think there is merit in both approaches, (as I write this I'm working at home) but that neither in isolation is the answer. In addition, a third stream to this is to simply alleviate the known problems we have at the moment which cause congestion, using some of the suggestions that have already been made. This is also where I feel our Councillors should be focusing their efforts and perhaps can bring about actual change: -
  • Make sure Stockport Highways "Improvements" actually DO improve traffic flow rather than restrict it. A simple change of strategy (and perhaps leadership!); spending the money we already seem to spend on making traffic flow rather than continually trying to stop it
  • Improve/widen junctions to remove bottlenecks (Torkington Road/A6 for example)
  • Use technology to improve traffic light phasing
  • Accept that the motor car is (at the moment at least) our primary option and therefore must not be penalized at the expense of walking/cycling/public transport ideals

Howard

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #32 on: March 14, 2019, 10:25:53 AM »
Marple is a victim of geography (three roads in and out of the town towards where most people work) and being a nice place to live and bring up kids or retire to.

I see there being two ways to address the traffic situation, one tactical and within the purview of local and regional government. The other is strategic and requires a complete change in mindset from the population and led by central government.

Locally and regionally, we need to invest in mass transit to make it reliable, frequent and affordable. We need to give preference to mass transit over individually-owned vehicles and make public transport more appealing and more convenient. I know that's going to upset people who feel it their inalienable right to use their own car whenever they want, and politicians will be frightened of doing so, but the only way to get people off the roads is to give them a better alternative.

The second way requires a change in thinking. In my (probably completely inaccurate) estimate, I reckon that at least 40% of office jobs can be done remotely, at least some of the time. There are technologies that allow collaboration and communication to be done seamlessly from wherever you are in the world. I wish that the government hadn't invested in the massively expensive HS2 and instead used the billions to run fibre to every property in the country (and require new house-builders to do the same). With investment in virtual and augmented reality and research into collaboration technology, we could get a lot of people (knowledge workers, students, teachers etc) off the roads yet keep them productive. It also requires training for managers and owners to help them develop policies which allow their staff to benefit from remote working yet maintain productivity.

Yes, I understand that many jobs require a physical presence, but many don't, and a change in mindset and investment, would have a far more widely-reaching effect than just locally upgrading public transport.

Maybe I'm a pessimist (perhaps, pragmatist) but I can't really see anyone being brave enough to do either of these things properly.

jimblob

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #31 on: March 14, 2019, 09:08:13 AM »
OK, let's amuse ourselves doing that, but don't let's kid ourselves that introducing early morning buses on Sundays or limiting parking near schools is ever going to have a major impact on the shocking traffic congestion that we put up with round here - by which I mean between Marple and Hazel Grove, Offerton, Stockport and Bredbury.

Tackling that needs serious strategic thinking, not short-term sticking plaster measures.
well said, couldn't agree more.

Steve Gribbon

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #30 on: March 13, 2019, 07:18:00 PM »
1) The school is there to educate children. Their responsibility stops at the school gates.
2) You don't think teachers have enough to do without acting as unpaid traffic enforcement officers?

Bring it to the attention of your local councillors and get them onto it.

I must confess I didn’t know this was an issue so thanks for bringing it up. I will get over in the next few days and see how bad it is. I get on well with a couple of staff members at MHS who I’ve met, I will have a chat with them about it too and see if anything has happened historically.

Steve


andrewbowden

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2019, 06:58:36 PM »
There are also issues with parking each time the school does an event for parents with little consideration given to local who need to park when they get home from work.   Maybe the school should only be allowed to have parent events at a location with enough parking for their customers or be required to limit the event size to the size of their own carpark.

Unless a street has parking restrictions, everyone has the right to park on the road.  Resident or visitor.  That's the way it is.  No one has the legal right to park outside, or near to their house on a public highway

Given how many school buses there are, I suspect parents picking children up are already in the minority.

Dave

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2019, 06:48:48 PM »
Might I suggest we focus on smallish short term developments here rather than rerun the rail argument

OK, let's amuse ourselves doing that, but don't let's kid ourselves that introducing early morning buses on Sundays or limiting parking near schools is ever going to have a major impact on the shocking traffic congestion that we put up with round here - by which I mean between Marple and Hazel Grove, Offerton, Stockport and Bredbury.

Tackling that needs serious strategic thinking, not short-term sticking plaster measures.


Howard

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2019, 06:07:27 PM »
There are often car parked in Claremont Av for Marple Hall School from about 2:30 with the engine left running collecting children that are clearly able to walk.     The school seems to make no effect to send out staff to stop it.

1) The school is there to educate children. Their responsibility stops at the school gates.
2) You don't think teachers have enough to do without acting as unpaid traffic enforcement officers?

Bring it to the attention of your local councillors and get them onto it.

ringi

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2019, 05:27:40 PM »
There are often car parked in Claremont Av for Marple Hall School from about 2:30 with the engine left running collecting children that are clearly able to walk.     The school seems to make no effect to send out staff to stop it.

There are also issues with parking each time the school does an event for parents with little consideration given to local who need to park when they get home from work.   Maybe the school should only be allowed to have parent events at a location with enough parking for their customers or be required to limit the event size to the size of their own carpark.

If there was an Aldi in Marple I would not be driving down Dan's Bank as often, maybe use some of the land near Rosehill Station.

corium

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #25 on: March 12, 2019, 04:21:50 PM »
Why do we need early morning sunday service who would use it .

As I made clear, those trying to get to work for 0900 and yes there are people who are required to do this; there are two in my house alone. Yes I know Sunday isn't a busy day. But the challenge to us all was to think about low cost & simple solutions. It's nice to sit and fantasise about the minutiae of new metrolinks, tram/ trains or whatever in yet another thread (& who is going to use them early on a Sunday morning?) but the challenge as I remember it was to think about low cost, relatively easy to implement suggestions which metrolinks are not.  So what (recent) evidence is there that there is no demand in Marple when it seems to exist in other areas of Stockport? or Are we wasting money providing unused transport elsewhere in the borough on early Sunday mornings? These (& I'm sure there are others people could think of) are the sort of questions we should be asking ourselves.

I'm not wedded to Sunday morning buses, it was just an idea which came to me, but it seems to me these are the sort of questions we should be asking in response to this challenge and to pick up an earlier comment from (I think) Andrew, to expect people to walk to say Hazel Grove or Bredbury (or perhaps cycle all the way to Stockport), which are the nearest bus pick up points I spotted on the timetables before embarking on a public facing 8/ 10 hour shift presupposes the existence of workplace shower facilities at their place of work is probably not too realistic.

I would however hope that everybody & anybodys this thread would stimulate some ideas that might actually be delivered in the short term. Just putting our heads in sand and saying things won't work or that a metrolink will solve all our problems isn't going to take a single car off the roads or remove a single inconveniently parked car this decade. So what are we going to do?

amazon

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #24 on: March 12, 2019, 02:07:10 PM »
This is the sort of defeatist thinking which ensures nothing in Marple ever changes. Have a look at the bus timetables into Stockport from other directions. Everywhere else seems (based on a quick browse through the major routes) into Stockport  to manage to have a service. Are Marple workers particularly lazy? How do they get in now?  By getting people to drive them, by paying for taxis out of their minimum wage earnings - and thus adding to the traffic everyone is moaning about. I don't know but how long was it since Marple had an early  Sunday service? Have things changed since then? This is why I suggest it's worth our elected reps at least  asking the question rather than just letting things drift along as at present. The thread has been started to promote suggestions for action, not be satisfied with the status quo.
Why do we need early morning sunday service who would use it .

andrewbowden

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #23 on: March 12, 2019, 11:39:30 AM »
This is the sort of defeatist thinking which ensures nothing in Marple ever changes. Have a look at the bus timetables into Stockport from other directions. Everywhere else seems (based on a quick browse through the major routes) into Stockport  to manage to have a service. Are Marple workers particularly lazy? How do they get in now?  By getting people to drive them, by paying for taxis out of their minimum wage earnings - and thus adding to the traffic everyone is moaning about. I don't know but how long was it since Marple had an early  Sunday service? Have things changed since then? This is why I suggest it's worth our elected reps at least  asking the question rather than just letting things drift along as at present. The thread has been started to promote suggestions for action, not be satisfied with the status quo.

I like to think of myself as a realist not a defeatist.

And the realism is that - thanks to cuts in grants from Central Government - councils are having to make major cuts in all manor of things.  It was announced the other week that the gym in Marple pool will no longer be open at weekends, and yesterday Life Leisure are no longer going to open most of the leisure centres on bank holidays due to funding cuts.  It was announced today that Marple fire station is going to go from 12 firefighters on the overnight shift to 9, because of funding cuts.  Police officer numbers are down.  The council's consulted on reducing park and verge maintenance.  There's a school in Reddish right now planning to close at lunchtime on Fridays because it can't afford to stay open.  Marple bus routes 305, 303 and 304 bus routes have already been axed because Transport for Greater Manchester have decided not to subsidise them.

This is the climate we're in.  Councils are strangled of investment by central government.  That impacts us all on many levels.  And it means that quite probably there isn't the cash to spend subsidising bus routes at 7am on a Sunday morning.

And - if we're really brutally honest - the problems with traffic in this town aren't really first thing on a Sunday morning.

This morning the 383/384 buses were running with up to 30 minute delays.  Why?  Because of the even heavier than usual traffic on the roads.  Why?  Because it was raining.  Everyone raced to their cars and drove them.

So here's a thing that can reduce traffic and it costs absolutely nothing.  Walk even when it's raining.

But being a realist, I feel quite confident in saying that probably won't happen.

corium

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #22 on: March 12, 2019, 10:47:09 AM »
There's no bus that early because Stagecoach don't see the demand for running one that early.  If they did, there would be one.

And therein your problem, and why even sorting out buses isn't a short term solution.  In every part of this country except Greater London, it's up to the bus companies to decide what services they want to run.  If they don't want to run a bus that gets in at Stockport for 9am, they won't run one.

Now Transport for Greater Manchester could subsidise Stagecoach to run those services.  They already subsidise 9 journeys a week on the 384 and 3 on the 383.  But they only have so much money.  If they subsidise more journeys on the 383 and 384, then that reduces the ability to subsidise other services.  What do you cut to add in that extra journey?

Even something that sounds simple, is not that simple.

This is the sort of defeatist thinking which ensures nothing in Marple ever changes. Have a look at the bus timetables into Stockport from other directions. Everywhere else seems (based on a quick browse through the major routes) into Stockport  to manage to have a service. Are Marple workers particularly lazy? How do they get in now?  By getting people to drive them, by paying for taxis out of their minimum wage earnings - and thus adding to the traffic everyone is moaning about. I don't know but how long was it since Marple had an early  Sunday service? Have things changed since then? This is why I suggest it's worth our elected reps at least  asking the question rather than just letting things drift along as at present. The thread has been started to promote suggestions for action, not be satisfied with the status quo.

amazon

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #21 on: March 12, 2019, 10:15:22 AM »
Lights at the end of Torkington Rd and that ridiculous layout preventing people turning left because of the way the lanes are set out. Stockport Highways team at their best, but causing massive backing up, usually to way before Offerton Road in the mornings. You'd think anything to get people onto the new bypass more quickly would be a no brainer! Now that would be mitigation measures that SHOULD have been implemented, rather than using the money on speed tables along Windlehurst. Well done Stockport Highways :)
Bye pass Bredbury would  help .i had just left school when that was talked about im not saying how old i am now .

jimblob

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Re: Traffic Issues in Marple - what can be done about them?
« Reply #20 on: March 12, 2019, 08:45:03 AM »
Something as simple as installing the latest technology available for SMART traffic light management could help traffic flow. Especially Dan Bank / 17 windows junctions. Where it always appears the lights are fighting each other..
Lights at the end of Torkington Rd and that ridiculous layout preventing people turning left because of the way the lanes are set out. Stockport Highways team at their best, but causing massive backing up, usually to way before Offerton Road in the mornings. You'd think anything to get people onto the new bypass more quickly would be a no brainer! Now that would be mitigation measures that SHOULD have been implemented, rather than using the money on speed tables along Windlehurst. Well done Stockport Highways :)