What are we all going to do when the work on Deansgate is finally finished and the chaos returns? No more ambling down the middle of the road, no more dancing between the single line of slow-moving motor traffic, no more disregarding the traffic signals and just going.
I've just been outside to get some GT85 for the bike from Evans and found out that the sun is shining and there's an end of Summer, grab-it-while-you-can atmosphere about the place. Imagine how fantastic it would all feel if Deansgate were permanently closed to traffic.
No more footballer wannabees revving their (inevitably, head-shakingly, dull-as-dishwater black) cars up outside whichever current ludicrously-named bar attracts them like rap-spurting, bass-addicted thunderfly, insinuating themselves, Thrip-like, under, in and through the fabric of everything, outside Sofa, Pram, Log or Head.
No more stop/start queues of traffic everynight. Jumping the lights, blocking the crossings, stinking the place up in their selfish desperation to lop ten seconds off the journey between Kendals and The Model Shop.
No more buses, vans, trucks and lorries bullying and bulldozing their way through. Instead, you could have a pedestrian superhighway, with all the space you would need to overtake a slow-moving, prevaricating tourist pensioner. Enough space to accomodate the Golf Umbrella pavement posse. Room enough even for those groups of shoppers who like to spread themselves in a line right across the pavement, holding invisible hands and tutting when you head through them, even though the alternative would send you into the road.
Hell, we could even invite the cyclists in. As long as they all agreed to stop dressing like twats and use some deodorant...
(Thanks to pit-yacker for the fantastic photograph).
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