Bad planning or a deliberate attempt to create artificial congestion?

Does your daily commute home from Manchester to Tameside seem longer these days when using the A57? Mine does and I know the reason why. Tameside Council or maybe even the Highways Agency in their infinite wisdom has created an unbelievable traffic bottleneck on the A57 just after the Denton roundabout. The bottleneck is not fully completed yet as you can see from the photographs, but it is certainly having the desired affect, that is - if there is a will to create artificial congestion to make the dreaded C-Charge a ‘necessity’.

Any driver reading this who travels up Hyde Rd from Manchester towards Tameside in rush hour will know that this has long been a congested route that often left traffic tailing back past the entrance to Denton golf club. But since the introduction of this new obstacle, rush hour traffic often tails back as far as KFC in Gorton. What is the reason I hear you ask?

Well the A57 exit from Denton roundabout used to have two lanes. At rush hour and other busy times one lane was filled with cars turning right at the lights just after Denton station towards Sainsbury’s. The other lane was used by cars intending to go straight on in the direction of Audenshaw or the centre of Denton. However, since the appearance of this new – and totally unnecessary obstruction which has reduced capacity from two lanes to one; if you want to go straight ahead, you can only do so after sitting in the queue of traffic waiting to turn right which has lead to total chaos and misery for many. I am convinced that this is a deliberate attempt to create congestion and it is undoubtedly going to be passed off as part of the “A57 quality bus corridor” or some other fraudulent scheme that is being used as an excuse to rip motorists off by implementing a congestion charge.