{"id":610651,"date":"2025-12-04T01:32:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/610651\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T01:32:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:32:33","slug":"ho-ho-hold-ups-its-rare-i-leave-the-house-on-a-weekend-night-i-might-not-bother-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/610651\/","title":{"rendered":"Ho, ho, hold ups: ‘It’s rare I leave the house on a weekend night – I might not bother again’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since when did it take 50 minutes to get into town from south Manchester?‘A thriving city requires a smooth transport system'(Image: M.E.N.)<\/p>\n

\u201c40 minutes?! To town?\u201d I asked, in accusing tones, to the person wielding the Uber app last Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget that, we\u2019ll get the bus\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201c52 MINUTES! Train then. 45?!\u201d<\/p>\n

This shouting of numbers went on for some time as we attempted to make the three mile journey from south Manchester to the city centre.<\/p>\n

Get news, views and analysis of the biggest stories with the daily Mancunian Way newsletter – sign up <\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Having mustered the energy to leave the house – a rare enough occasion in itself – we were pretty startled to find out it would take absolutely ages to get to Aviva Studios, no matter how we travelled.<\/p>\n

Traffic in Manchester City Centre on Saturday November 22(Image: MEN)<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t have escaped your notice that travelling in and around the city centre the last few weeks has been a bit of a nightmare. And last weekend was the busiest two days on record, with an estimated 1.4 million journeys made into the city centre over Saturday and Sunday (November 29 and 30).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the highest number of visitors since traffic flow records began in early 2020. And it\u2019s 200,000 more journeys than seven days earlier, when there was a weekend of misery, caused by huge tailbacks<\/a>. In fact, police are being drafted in<\/a> to help deal with the swelling number of vehicles.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just the city centre where standstill traffic is a problem either. My colleague Emma Gill made the innocent mistake of \u201cpopping out\u201d for an extension lead on Sunday afternoon and found herself sitting in a car park in Leigh for almost an hour.<\/a><\/p>\n

It would seem festive fun comes at a price. Whether or not you\u2019re willing to pay it depends on how strong a thirst you have for the Christmas markets, gigs and human contact.<\/p>\n

We did finally manage to get into town on Saturday via Uber and a fairly circuitous route. But it was hard work for the driver taking us in.<\/p>\n

When we emerged from the Everything Everything gig at 10.30pm the city centre was absolutely rammed full of people leaving gigs, the theatre and queuing to get into pubs, clubs and bars.<\/p>\n

Horns were blaring amid festive chaos at the car park at Manchester Arndale on Saturday November 15(Image: @jamesdestafford \/ TikTok)<\/p>\n

On the one hand, you could say this \u2018chaos\u2019 is testament to the popularity and success of Manchester as a place people want to live in, work in and have fun in.<\/p>\n

But There\u2019s no doubt the officials at Transport for Greater Manchester will be working very hard to try and take the edge off for passengers. But it\u2019s no small feat.<\/p>\n

Cabbies, bus, tram and train drivers will really hold things down this month. And the cracks are already showing with Metrolink workers proposing strike action<\/a> in a dispute about fatigue, rest breaks and rota patterns.<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019ll be the polar opposite come the end of the month. The black cab driver who took us home on Saturday said things grind to halt by the time the Christmas markets wrap up on December 22. And even New Year\u2019s Eve is slow these days.<\/p>\n

Where once it was the busiest night of the year earning him \u00a3500 over a few hours, he now takes home more like \u00a3200. After all, they say staying in is the new going out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since when did it take 50 minutes to get into town from south Manchester?‘A thriving city requires a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15,185318],"class_list":{"0":"post-610651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unmissable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115658724026112740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}