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This is a thread about putting the A6 between Stockport and Hazel Grove on a diet. This 5km section of the A6 is at least 4 lanes - 12 metres - wide. It's Hazel Grove's high street. It has schools, shops, a hospital, houses and a park. And traffic.
Road diets are an American idea. You get all these 4-lane roads and it turns out they can be converted to 3 lanes and still carry just as many vehicles. How's that possible?
4-lane urban highways suffer from two big problems. First, car drivers wanting to turn right have to sit in the outside lane waiting to cross two lanes of traffic. That blocks the lane. Second, vehicles park in the inside lane. Often on the A6 both happen at once
It turns out that you can move just as many vehicles around if you have one lane each way plus a right-turn lane in the middle. The A6 has some even wider sections (e.g. 5-lanes) but that huge tarmac desert doesn't help a lot.
For most of the time the lanes are under-used, encouraging speeding. Coming into Stockport, passing Stockport College, there's a peak-hours bus lane which takes the northbound side down to one lane. It goes down to one lane again crossing the Mersey. The world has not ended.
OK, so drop a lane and we've got an extra 3-6 metres to play with (as you only need a right-turn lane when there's a road to turn right into). We don't want to change the pavement line unless we have to - because it's really expensive. What shall we do?
We can put a segregated cycle lane down each side, transforming cycle safety and allowing more people to cycle to the hospital, shops, park, schools and college. Each will be 1.5m wide, not the ideal 2m, but let's not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
We can add more parking bays to keep local traders happy and take parked cars off the carriageway. Hopefully all that parking won't be needed when lots of people feel comfortable cycling or walking, but it's an option.
We can put trees down the centre of the carriageway in sections where we don't need a right-turn lane or additional parking bays, making the road feel far more pleasant to spend time on.
We can put bike and e-bike hire at the Hazel Grove park & ride 1 mile from the hospital and in Stockport, giving people real alternatives to fighting for the limited and often expensive parking around the hospital site.
And it won't cost a fortune. It's not building any new road or pavement. The biggest cost will be improving a few large junctions to make them safe and welcoming for non-car users. You won't sort out 5km of road so it's working for the whole community much cheaper.
I wouldn't normally take diet tips from our American cousins, but this is an exception. We can make it easier for people to get around on bike or on foot, cut pollution, reduce parking problems, boost local shops and help local people get healthier. What's not to like? [END]
![I wouldn't normally take diet tips from our American cousins, but this is an exception. We can make it easier for people to get around on bike or on foot, cut pollution, reduce parking problems, boost local shops and help local people get healthier. What's not to like? [END]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EeF1aTZX0AEvSAA.jpg "I wouldn't normally take diet tips from our American cousins, but this is an exception. We can make it easier for people to get around on bike or on foot, cut pollution, reduce parking problems, boost local shops and help local people get healthier. What's not to like? [END]")
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