City Centre Road

The City Centre Road was the planned innermost ring road for the city of Manchester forming a tight loop around the central core. The northern portion would have multiplexed with the Inner Ring Road and was designed to allow traffic to seamlessly transfer between both rings in a freeflow fashion.

The road was designed for a 40mph speed limit and would have been built to D2 standard with an additional lane between junctions. Its purpose would have been solely to distribute traffic within the central area. All traffic passing through the city centre would use the inner ring road.

History

Proposals first appeared in the 1962 SELNEC Report as a simple line on a map not matching later proposals.

By 1966 detailed plans were drawn up. In 1968 five alternatives for the line of the eastern section were under consideration to move the road away from Portland Street. At around the same time the junctions with the Inner Ring Road were altered so the City Centre Road would pass over the Inner Ring Road instead of below it.

Proposals for the road along with the rest of the urban motorway network for the city were abandoned c1974 at around the time of local government reorganisation.

In 1975 a much scaled down proposal was made called the Cordon Route. This would have been an even smaller ring than the City Centre Road. The eastern and southern flanks would have been the same but the western flank would have been Deansgate and the northern flank would be where the Arndale Centre now stands. The route would have been formed by dualling existing roads. The junctions would all be at-grade with large gyratories in places. This proposal appears on only one map and no other documentation exists.