Love Your Bike, the cycling advocacy campaign co-ordinated by Manchester Friends of the Earth, has launched a survey to gather the experiences of people who have cycled alongside, close to or across Metrolink tram tracks.
In December 2014, Love Your Bike again raised concerns regarding the designs of Metrolink tram routes at road junctions such as Southmoor Road in Wythenshawe.
In 2012, Sean Sutton (the British Cycling Head Coach at the time) described the new tram lines near to the Velodrome as ‘death traps’.
Love Your Bike is concerned that where cyclists have crashed or been injured when cycling close to/across Metrolink tracks they do not report the incident because they blame themselves for their lack of cycling experience or skill.
But Love Your Bike believes that many of these incidents may be caused by poor designs. In January 2015, Transport for London (TfL) announced a junction-by-junction safety review of the Croydon tram network following a Coroner's report that criticised “confusing" signage and layout of cycle lanes at the junctions with the tram network and warned more cyclists could die unless action was taken.
In February 2015, Love Your Bike received a response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) asking for details of the number of people who had reported crashing on/near tram tracks.
Whilst, the number of reported incidents is still quite low, there has been a three-fold increase between 2013 to 2014 in both the number of incidents reported and the number of claims submitted for injuries and/or damages.
Manchester Friends of the Earth Sustainable Transport Campaigner Graeme Sherriff said: “We have launched the survey to ask the wider community to let us know their experiences of cycling across tram tracks in Greater Manchester. If the design of Metrolink tracks, particularly at road intersections, puts cyclists at risk, we want to highlight this problem and work for improvements."
To complete the survey, visit: www.loveyourbike.org/metrolinksurvey