Barbara has welcomed the fact that her work on highlighting traffic congestion issues has now pushed Greater Manchester transport bosses to try to find measures to ease traffic congestion in Salford.

Barbara had called on senior officials from Salford Council, Transport for Greater Manchester, Highways England and Urban Vision to take urgent action to alleviate the regular traffic chaos locally. Transport bosses are now coming up with a list of ideas in response to Barbara’s campaign to ease pressure on local traffic hotspots.

Traffic on roads in Salford has increased by 3.6% in the year to December 2015, more than the 1.1% average across Greater Manchester. Following the lack of any suitable solutions being put forward by the senior transport officials, Barbara asked local people for their ideas on how to tackle the problems. Barbara’s survey revealed that 96% of people who had responded had seen their journey time increase in recent months.

Barbara took the survey responses to Greater Manchester transport bosses and called for solutions be looked at again. Following Barbara’s recent meetings with Transport for Greater Manchester and a second City Council Traffic Summit, transport officials are now working on a number of short to medium-term measures to try to ease congestion at some of the major traffic hotspots in Salford.

Barbara said:

“I am delighted that transport officials have listened to the concerns raised by me and local residents. Action to ease the intolerable levels of traffic congestion is long overdue. Traffic congestion across Salford is making people’s lives a misery, and without immediate action these problems will only get worse.

“I receive many complaints about the levels of traffic congestion locally. There are concerns not just about the long delays people have when travelling to work but also reports from parents struggling to drop-off and collect children from school, missed hospital appointments, businesses unable to open on time in the morning and employees fearing they will lose their jobs as a result of the delays due to traffic congestion. I felt it was important that transport officials heard these stories and understood the impact the congestion was having on the lives of local people.

“I called on transport officials to do whatever was possible to help improve the lives of people who find themselves stuck each day in this traffic nightmare. I hope that these short to medium-term measures being examined will be able to ease the traffic congestion in the coming months.”