The A57 enters the Manchester area at Irlam in the west and roughly follows the course of the Manchester Ship Canal as far as Eccles. From Eccles to Salford, the route has been bypassed by the M602 motorway. After the end of the M602, the A57 takes over as the main route as Regent Road, before turning into the urban motorway, the A57(M), part of Manchester's inner ring road, which is mostly elevated above ground level.
In East Manchester, the A57 runs along Hyde Road. Nowadays it is a busy commuter route for those heading into the city centre from the M60 motorway and the east, but its origins stretch back a long way. Apart from one little course correction, this section of the A57 is ruler straight, which gives away that it is built on the course of the old Roman Road which used to run between the forts at Manchester (Mamucium) and Melandra Castle (Ardotalia) near Glossop. Manchester's Roman fort was based in the Castlefield area of the city close to where Manchester's tallest building, the Beetham Tower, now stands. As a result, the A57's straight course means that the Beetham tower is right in view for several miles.
East of the M60 motorway, and the A57 runs through Denton and Hyde, and is again bypassed by a motorway, the M67. The section east of the M67's terminus is frequently congested, even outside of peak traffic times, and the residents of Mottram-in-Longdendale, Hollingworth, and Tintwistle have been calling for a bypass for many years.
In the 1960s, proposals were drawn up to build a motorway extension of the M67 route into Manchester City Centre roughly along the course of the A57.