Your city centre is changing: Conversation update

Last year TfGM ran a public conversation alongside Manchester and Salford City Councils to find out what people thought of city centre transport and public spaces.

The ten week conversation, which finished in October 2018, saw nearly 4,000 people have their say.

The findings will now being fed into the development of the draft City Centre Transport Strategy, after which a formal public consultation on its proposals will take place later this year.

The responses produced some interesting findings with 90 per cent of respondents identifying air quality as an important issue for the city centre while 80 per cent agreed that increasing cycling, walking and public transport infrastructure would help to improve it.

As has been previously highlighted by the Mayor’s Congestion Deal, issues with traffic were identified as one of the biggest problems when travelling in the city centre. On that theme, 69 per cent of those asked felt that reducing levels of traffic was the best way to create a high-quality city centre, while nearly half felt that cars, motorcycles and mopeds had too much space.

Poor accessibility and ticketing and the need for greater integration between modes were all highlighted as preventing more people from using public transport to access the city centre.
Safety and parking were also flagged up as being major issues when it came to cycling, with 80 per cent of respondents admitting to feeling unsafe when cycling around the city centre and 78 per cent rating the current levels of cycle parking as insufficient.

You can access full analysis of the conversation results here.

Check back for updates on how you can get involved in the consultation later this year.