A bus stop under motorway regulations
Well, not really. But it sure looks like it.
Today I encountered a very strange section of road which is used exclusively by buses, which for at least part of its length appears to be designated a motorway, but which appears to contain a bus stop.
The road in question is located in south Manchester, at the junction of the A5103 Princess Parkway and the M60 Manchester Ring Road. Follow the A5103 on OpenStreetMap approaching the junction from the southern side, and you’ll see the sliproad from the A5103 to the M60 branching off, as you would expect. But then the sliproad splits again, with a small road branching off to the left, diving under the whole motorway interchange and then connecting to the sliproad to the A5103 from the M60. Trace the same journey in the opposite direction and you’ll find the same thing: a small road connecting the two sliproads while avoiding the M60 itself. There’s no indication of this in online maps, but these roads have signs and road markings designating them for buses only.
But do they actually avoid the M60? It’s not clear to me that they do. Take a look at this video traversing this section of road in the southbound direction. It was taken on Stagecoach Manchester bus route 101, one of two routes1 that uses the section.
As the bus diverges from the A5103, we see two signs that both suggests we are heading onto the M60, but then, just beyond the “No entry except buses” sign is a sign indicating the end of motorway regulations. Then, after passing under the M60 bridges, we encounter another “No entry except buses” sign, followed by a second sign indicating that we are joining the M60. After going around a curve, we pass a pair of signs indicating that we are entering a Clearway with a maximum speed of 40 mph, but no second sign indicating the end of the motorway, before encountering a bus stop on the left.
So does this road layout and signage mean the bus stop is on the motorway? The authoritative source on the meanings of road signage in the UK is a piece of legislation called the Traffic Sign Regulations and General Directions, and it says that the start of motorway regulations (or rather the point at which “Regulations in force under section 17 of the 1984 [Road Traffic Regulation] Act start to apply to the road”) is indicated by Diagram 2901, which is a sign with the familiar motorway symbol and a route number. The first set of signs we pass through are like this, but also have arrows, and that is not a “permitted variant” of Diagram 2901. What these signs actually are is a “directional sign…placed on or near another road at a junction indicating a route leading directly to a motorway”, under Schedule 12, Part 2 of TSR&GD. So they are purely to inform drivers that the route leads to a motorway, and don’t have any regulatory significance In any case, the motorway status of the road is quickly cancelled out by the next sign, which is Diagram 2931, indicating the point at which “Regulations referred to in respect of [Diagram 2901] cease to apply”.
The next motorway sign, beyond the bridges, is a genuine Diagram 2901 indicating an entrance to the M60. So if it is to be believed, the bus does spend some time on the motorway - but, having done some research, I can say with reasonable confidence that the bus stop itself is not located on the motorway, even though there is no “end of motorway” sign. There’s no way it legally could be. Regulations aren’t made with signs2, signs are put up to indicate regulations, and the regulations say a bus stop cannot exist on a motorway. The Highway Code - the government’s summary of road regulations, which is recommended reading for all users of the road - says:
You MUST NOT stop on any carriageway, emergency area, hard shoulder, slip road, central reservation or verge except in an emergency, or when told to do so by the police, traffic officers, an emergency sign or by red flashing light signals.
Government guidance specifically covering buses on motorways confirms that this means bus stops are not allowed:
the Motorway Traffic (England and Wales) Regulations 1982(SI 1982 No. 1163) and The Motorways Traffic (Scotland) Regulations 1995 (SI 1995 No.2507) (S.183) permit buses to use motorways but they are not allowed to stop and pick up passengers on such roads.
So at some point between the bridge and the bus stop, the motorway regulations end - I’d guess this is formally at the point where the Clearway starts. The next set of signs are on a green background, indicating a non-motorway trunk route. But it’s still an odd section of road, and it begs the question - why was it built, rather than just routing the buses directly along the A5103 with other traffic?
I don’t have a definite answer to that question, but I think it probably has to do with that bus stop, and its counterpart on the other side of the road. Take a look on the map - these stops are obviously intended to serve the housing on Yewtree Lane and other nearby streets. The positioning of buildings - most of which look to predate the motorway junction - means the bus stops can’t sensibly go much further south, as there would be no room for a path for people to access them, and people would have to walk up to the junction and then double back quite a long way along the dual carriageway. They can’t go much further north, because then they would be stuck in the middle of a motorway junction which is itself in the middle of an empty field. Bus stops, for obvious reasons, have to go in the furthest left lane on the road - and at the only point on the road it can reasonably be located, that happens to mean the M60 sliproad. So the solution was to build a route that gets buses onto the M60 sliproad, even if they don’t come from the M60.
It’s interesting to consider, though, whether this was the only solution. The other alternative - which I suspect would be chosen nowadays, and to some extent I’m surprised wasn’t chosen then - was simply not to put a bus stop on that section of the A5103 at all, since there are bus services on other nearby roads. I’ve found some suggestion online that there was a bus stop there before the motorway was built, and the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive insisted it be retained. I’ve not seen any substantive evidence for this, so it’s just a theory, though it does sound plausible.
This issue also has an arguably more interesting solution to get buses onto the M60 sliproad: just run them along the M60. The current situations is that buses out of Manchester to the south on the A34 (Kingsway) terminate before reaching the M60, while buses that run out along the A5103 continue beyond it to Northenden and Wythenshawe. In theory, this could be swapped, with buses on the southern section of the A5103 terminating short of the M60 - most obviously at Southern Cemetery Bus Station - and buses from the A34 joining the M60 and then coming off it via the sliproad and continuing on the A5103. Remember, buses are allowed to travel on motorways - they just aren’t allowed to stop on them. This would probably extend some journey times slightly, but it would have maintained service to the affected stop without needing to build a dedicated road for buses. Of course, the service pattern may have been different then.
Whatever their motivations, I’m glad in many ways that the motorway engineers of the time chose the option they did. It’s certainly produced something interesting, and long may it survive.