TT-ONR-NRN
Veteran Member
Taking the V1 from my current home in Salford Quays to Leigh, where I had a house viewing recently, I was taken aback by just how much the guided busway resembles a tramway. Obviously I expected the buses to have segregated track-style roads, but even the bus stops are laid out and set up like Metrolink stations. I can't help wondering if it would be worth converting it to Metrolink, and I suppose just sharing with buses from where it joins the standard road bus lanes from Salford to in between Exchange Square and St Peter's Square. It seems very much like a lot of the infrastructure is largely already there.
Leigh is of course one of the largest towns in the UK without a railway station, and I don't think anyone is of any doubt that a tram is generally a nicer, more pleasant and efficient way to travel than a bus.
This could of course apply to the V2 to Atherton as well, but this only utilises half of the guided busway before diverging onto conventional roads, so it becomes trickier. Whereas the V1 utilises the entire busway, and when it joins it just after Salford, it remains on it all the way to Leigh. So you wouldn't have to build any disruptive street running in Leigh, you could terminate where the busway ends immediately before Lidl, by the high street.
Leigh is of course one of the largest towns in the UK without a railway station, and I don't think anyone is of any doubt that a tram is generally a nicer, more pleasant and efficient way to travel than a bus.
This could of course apply to the V2 to Atherton as well, but this only utilises half of the guided busway before diverging onto conventional roads, so it becomes trickier. Whereas the V1 utilises the entire busway, and when it joins it just after Salford, it remains on it all the way to Leigh. So you wouldn't have to build any disruptive street running in Leigh, you could terminate where the busway ends immediately before Lidl, by the high street.
