First Manchester

[M60lad]

RE: First Manchester
The B5LH was still out yesterday evening peak on 2s as I saw it heading past Victoria Station about 17:20 yesterday evening.

Also due extra traffic due to The Young Voices Choir on at Manchester Arena, First Manchester were having serious problems keeping services to time from about 17:30 onwards as Rochdale Road outbound was busy with extra traffic going to the Arena, this was having a knock on effect with buses in/around City Center with Church Street, Great Ancoats Street and Oldham Street seriously affected, Buses on Church Street were virtually not moving and were queuing from High Street lights all the way back to Oldham Street and Lever Street Junctions.

Because of the amount of traffic and buses hardly moving on Church Street ithis was having problems with Oldham Street buses as well as nothing could turn right onto Church Street meaning anything coming down Oldham Street was waiting for buses to turn right onto Church Street, as a result a journey coming down Oldham Street seemed to be taking an additonal 20mins or more just to get from top to bottom, one service I did see was 17:45 24 Manchester-Rochdale service which was stuck in the jam and it was still there in the same place at about 18:05 with various other buses in front of it also suffering the same problems