Dearest gentle readers, rejoice! There’s finally some news to bring to your eyeballs.
Following on from his trip back to the Downing St Cabinet table yesterday, Mayor B got stuck in and publicly announced a few Bee related things today to keep his face in the news, some you might already have read about in this organ, mostly rail related:
- His much sought-after ‘hopper fair’. Fares capped at £2 for 60 minutes.
- Metrolink extensions (I’ll call it Phase 5) – Salford Quays to Salford Crescent, Didsbury to Stockport, Trafford Park to Port Salford and Harpurhey to Middleton. No dates though.
- 8 rail lines brought under ‘local control’: the 3 Wigan routes via Atherton, Bolton and Golborne, Airport, Alderley Edge and Buxton via Stockport, Glossop and Hadfield, Rose Hill Marple via Guide Bridge, Ashton and Stalybridge and Rochdale.
- He’s quoted as saying that the region will ‘have to go underground by the middle of the century to ensure the region’s growth continues. That would be done through tunneling and creating underground ‘rapid transit’ travel networks , ‘going beyond the Bee Network’. (quote from ManchesterWorld)
- The announcement of plans for a new station at Cheadle and pushing new Chancellor Rachel Reeves to approve the new Golborne station.
Read more in Rail.
The tram-train concept to Warrington, Wigan and Glossop/Hadfield would be quite interesting, as would Oldham Mumps-Bury via Heywood seeing as it would require some sort of acquisition of the ELR and double tracking it, unless they lay a new route via the roads?
After a 2 month hiatus, the BNC met to kick start it’s 2024/2025 year on 27th June. Meeting video unavailable for some reason.
Again, I do wish they’d cut down the amount of reports and paper work they dish out. Every report has a ‘carbon assessment’!!!
- CRSTS – City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement – money jiggling this time:
- City Centre Bus Strategy Phase 1: £1.25m
- Metrolink Next Generation Vehicles / Tram-Train Pathfinder: £1.547m
- Takes total funding for this element to £7.7m, I think? They give the figure as £7.027m, but I can’t make the figures work on that! My abacus must be broken.
- I’m guessing Bombardier have finally fully closed M5000 production options, so GMCA’s hand is being forced into procuring different vehicles. I hope the opportunities to fix the M5000’s few short comings will be taken. Suspension. Cough.
- Tameside: A560 Stockport Road / Hattersley Viaduct Refurbishment and Widening: £0.81m
- SWANI (Sale West to Altrincham Network Improvements): Full Business Case approval and £0.18m
- Stockport: Hempshaw Lane: Full Business Case approval £1.05m
- Endorse the reallocation of £246k from the Stockport A6/Manchester Road/School Lane scheme to support delivery of the scheme
- Stockport: Woodley to Bredbury Parkway Improvement Scheme (formerly, Bredbury Economic Corridor Improvement (BECI) Package): Full Business Case approval and £0.83m
- Active Travel money jiggling:
- Trafford A56 Phase 2: £2.07m (CRSTS funding through the MCF programme)
- Manchester Yellow Brick Road: £1.5m (Active Travel Fund Round 4 (ATF4) funding) (I quite like this project name).
- Stockport Heatons Link Phase 2: £2.7m (ATF4 funding)
- Stockport Ladybrook Valley Phase 2: £2.3m (ATF4 funding)
- Stockport Romiley to Stockport: £3.4m (ATF4 funding)
- E-Cycle Pilot: £0.5m (Revenue Grant)
- Capability Fund Extension £1.7m (Revenue Grant)
- £13.8m of the bus franchising capital transition budget been allocated to fund and deliver ongoing renewal of depot infrastructure – described as “facilitating the renewal of infrastructure and key plant and machinery (e.g. bus washes) and, where relevant, safer and more effective working environments.”
The first of Metroline’s own vehicles have arrived at Wythenshawe in the form of 2 Volvo B9TL’s in a purple “Join Üs” livery, converted at Thorntons. Metroline have setup their training school alongside Arriva’s current operations. Rumours suggesting they currently aren’t taking on direct hires – aka qualified drivers.
Free tram travel to Manchester’s biggest waste of space, the Co-op Live, has been extended for a whopping whole month! The scheme for concert ticket holders was due to end 30th June. It’s funded by the venue to tick a “ongoing commitment to sustainable travel” box. Let’s see how “ongoing” it ends up being!
Should a mega concert venue not be your thing, DeeJay Yellow Double Decker, sorry… Mayor B, is returning to the DJ decks at the ‘All My Friends’ clubnight at Band on the Wall on 19th July. Handily close to Shudehill and Piccadilly so no special bribes to travel by public transport needed.
DJ YDD will be donating his fee to the Mayor’s charity.
Tickets. Doors 9:30pm.
Today (10th July) service on Metrolink’s Rochdale line was suspended between Rochdale and Mumps due to a ‘land movement’ between Derker and Shaw. Obviously not serious enough to require immediate emergency closure as they waited until today to close it, finishing out service yesterday with a temporary speed restriction in the affected section.
A map on the ‘service update’ page urges people to walk the, er, 3 hours between Oldham and Rochdale or get a service bus whilst they spin up a replacement bus service. Something you think would be much easier thanks to franchising. As I write this at tea time, still no update on the bus service.
This is possibly the second media quote outing for Pete Sommers, TfGM’s new Network Director for Metrolink following Danny Vaughn’s promotion to Chief Network Officer after Eamonn Boylan’s retirement as CEO.
He said: “The safety of our passengers, staff and the wider public is our absolute priority, which is why we have made these decisions.
Here draws to a close our time together, my friends, until next time.
Keep your news coming to my inbox full of cobwebs.
Shabba.
