A rant about Portland Street

If, like me you have the misfortune to have to ride along Portland Street in Manchester city centre, you’ll know that it’s simultaneously a popular yet incredibly hostile road for cyclists.

Putting aside the ‘use an alternative route’ approach as I'm essentially snookered by one way systems and tram lines which are lethal on the 363 days of the year when they’re wet, what could be done to make the street safer for everyone?

I may well be going over old ground here but, it seems to me that the main issue stems from the re-routing of buses up Portland Street from Oxford Street in order to accommodate the buggering about with St Peter’s Square. The volume of double-deckers and National Express buses on the road is phenomenal. This is one busy road.

The other notable thing for cyclists is the lack of any cycling infrastructure: travelling north – from Oxford Road toward Piccadilly Gardens, the road starts at a bottle neck before spreading into two lanes the left hand one being a bus lane. The bus lane is more or less continuous all the way up to Piccadilly Gardens. 

Travelling south the bus lane is less well defined to allow for other road users to turn left at various points. In fact, at the section in-between Princess Street and Oxford Street, past CUBE Gallery, the bus lane disappears all together replaced by on-street car parking bays. Beyond these and back at the Oxford Street junction, you can find the only section of bike lane on the street with its stop box at the lights.

Approaching Portland Street from Oxford Street

 My understanding of the advanced stop box is that they are required by law to be accompanied by ‘feeder’ lane on the left which cyclists should use to enter the stop box – even, as is the case at the Oxford Street / Portland Street junction, if you’re turning right across three lanes of traffic - see picture.

The real difficulty arrives when the buses turn onto Portland Street from Oxford Street and queue up to decant their passengers.  If you recall how busy St Peter’s Square used to be with buses and then think about the length of the bus stop in comparison what’s available on Portland Street, it’s no surprise that a backlog forms.  Surely by simply moving the bus stops along Portland Street so as passengers alight outside of the IBIS Hotel, this would defuse the issues at this junction.

I’d also like to see some kind of bike lane running the length of the street – if room can be found for parking bays, then surely room can be found for a bike lane.  This would probably mean Portland Street becoming a single lane carriageway in both directions.  That would be a good thing in my view as it’s essentially what is in place now but without the bike infrastructure.