Buses, trams and trains – what the future of transport in Greater Manchester looks like

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has laid out plans for the future of transport and growth in the region.

It includes a major new extension of the Bee Network by bringing rail lines under local control, the move to a fully integrated London-style transport system and future plans for underground travel.

The mayor said the region was in the midst of a transport “revolution” that would involve everyone around Greater Manchester.

READ MORE: New map shows plan for Metrolink extension in Greater Manchester

He added that Greater Manchester had grown “faster than the UK economy” and that the new announcements were a plan to support growth.

All buses in the region are due to join the Bee network by January 5, including services in Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and the rest of Manchester and Salford – with some new lower fares being introduced for commuters.

The Bee network was launched in Wigan, Bolton and parts of Bury, Salford and Manchester last September as Greater Manchester became the first area to bring buses under local control after deregulation in 1986.

Commuters will see small price cuts, with unlimited journeys on Bee Network bus services £20 for seven days for an adult and £10 for a child – compared to £21 and £10.50 currently.

The 28-day trip will be over £5 cheaper for adults – falling from £85.40 (£42.70 for a child) to £80 (£40 for a child).

The new ‘hopper’ tickets are part of bus franchise plans from 5 January, which will allow users to be able to use the same ticket on as many Bee Network buses as they want for an hour, at the existing price of £2 for adults and £. 1 for children and concessions.

Half-price monthly bus passes for 18-21 year olds are also to be announced, supporting the drive towards technical education through Greater Manchester Baccalaureate qualifications.

The transition to a fully contactless payment system on buses was delayed until mid-March, with Mr Burnham putting off the “big bang” day when the whole Bee Network will be up and running.

The mayor said it would be “too much of a risk” to launch everything on the same day shortly after Christmas.

The Bee network will be extended to Greater Manchester railways, with eight lines coming under local control by 2028, with pay-as-you-go contactless payments, and “full rollout” by 2030.

The eight original lines are Wigan via Bolton; Wigan via Atherton; Wigan via Golborne; airport; Alderley Edge and Buxton via Stockport; Glossop; Hadfield and Rose Hill Marple via Guide Bridge; Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge; and Rochdale.

This will bring improvements to rail services, according to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), with a minimum of two trains per hour at each station, integrated fares and new trains.

The mayor said he had written to new Prime Minister Keir Starmer, saying he believed the region could “deliver more for less” by using devolved powers.

He added that the eight locally controlled railway lines are currently subsidized by around £100m a year, with some lines “carrying a good degree of fresh air”, partly because of the cost of train travel.

It will give travelers “more bang for their buck” if they can access their station and take the tram and bus built into their ticket, which the mayor believes will increase ridership and help reduce the required subsidy.

Plans for a new station in Golborne are still on the cards, with the mayor pledging to ask the new Transport Secretary for the green light to start work.

A new station in Cheadle is due to be delivered by 2026-27.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has also outlined a ‘Rapid Transit’ system to create new bus, tram-train and Metrolink routes around the region.

This is part of 15 emerging priorities identified for new, extended and converted lines, including the introduction of tram-train services to link light and heavy rail networks and the potential for major new tunnelled capacity.

Plans are being drawn up to take Metrolink to Stockport, Heywood, Middleton and Bolton, although the business cases for these are still being prepared, with updates expected by the end of 2024.

Other options for future Metrolink extensions include taking the tram to Port Salford and connecting Bury, Oldham and Rochdale around the Atom Valley business site.

Among the announcements was that Vernon Everitt and Dame Sarah Storey were re-appointed as acting Transport and Travel Commissioners for Greater Manchester to oversee the next phase of delivery of the Bee Network.

The announcement comes as the latest figures show the Bee Network is providing a more reliable bus service than before they came under local control, with increasing numbers of people using them.

Over the past six months, the number of people using buses in Bee Network areas has increased by 5%, according to TfGM, with the week ending May 18 seeing its highest weekly patronage since the franchise began, with more than 849,000 passenger journeys .

According to statistics, service punctuality is improving, with more than 80% of services running on time between April 28 and June 23 this year, compared to 68.7% for the same period 12 months ago.

Mr Everitt said bringing rail lines under local control by 2028 would make traveling around Greater Manchester feel “fundamentally different”.

He added: “This is part of this Bee Network strategy, which is a powerhouse for growth and productivity.

“Transport doesn’t stand in isolation, it doesn’t work in its own right, it’s an enabler for everything else that Greater Manchester is trying to deliver.”

Mr Everitt announced there would be a new fleet of trams to help expand Metrolink services as well as tram-train capacity.

He continued: “The next four years will see further rapid improvements in transport for the people and businesses of the region.

“This includes completing the reunification of Metrolink, buses, trains and active journeys into one unified network, all linked by simple and affordable fares, ticketing and customer information. We will also continue to focus on the safety and security of our customers and staff.”

Also, all stations in the region are to be accessible by 2040.

Despite the plans, Mr Burnham said there was a risk that a lack of connectivity and transport capacity would eventually become a “barrier to growth” in the city-region.

He said: “I would stress the need to go underground at some point. Not to do it all above ground like a second city elsewhere in Europe has done in recent decades, going underground to support continued economic growth and not put a cap on the economic growth a place like Greater London can have Manchester.

“I’m not holding back on taking those messages into the new government because we now have a government that is on a growth mission and Greater Manchester is ready to play its full part in that.

“In fact, we are prepared to play more than our part because we have already offered the Prime Minister to build beyond the Greater Manchester part of the 1.5 million homes which is the Government’s overall target for this Parliament.

“If we’re going to do that, we’re going to need much greater levels of devolution and financial support to be able to build the infrastructure in the way we’ve described.”

He added: “I think that by the middle of this century Greater Manchester will have to go underground if we are to continue to build the economic strength of this great, rapidly growing region of the city, there’s no point in holding back from saying that .

“It’s not about making unrealistic bids for funding now, it’s about saying (we need) a tube station at Piccadilly and building tunnels and starting to think about underground rapid transit through the city region.

“With the phase that we’ve outlined today, we can grow capacity intelligently without having to go to that level, but there comes a time and now we’re thinking beyond this phase of the Bee Network and where it’s going to go, and we” I’ll be building more and more of those conversations over the coming years.”

A Greater Manchester Combined Authority report on the plans said the cost of tunnel travel options “would be in the billions” but could be “less than the longer tunnel required for the Elizabeth line”.

He added: “There is a lot to do with such an investment.”

Luke Bramwell, head of rapid transit development at TfGM, said plans for an underground network were “in the early days” but the proposal “needs to be kept open”.

He added: “From the south-west to the north-east, there’s a lot of pressure on Metrolink there, so the starting point is to look at trams, but clearly we also have plans to bring tram-train services in some of these. routes and there are options to bring in rail lines so it needs to be kept open and flexible.

“On the north-west to south-east axis, the key pressure is around the Castlefield corridor, so I think the early work that we have is going much more towards a regional tube-type service – meaning trains – but both they must be kept open.

“It’s early days, but we have to react to the fact that in the middle of this century, the capacity pressure and the growth constraint have to be addressed.”