City populations are a bit weird but I would imagine that the population of the area that this encompasses comes out to about 8million, Greater Manchester is 2.5mil, Liverpool city region is 1.5 million, west yorkshire in total is 2.3mil and then add the various towns.
It honestly seems like a decent idea, I did think when I first saw it on here, why tunnel through all of manchester for the approach when there's room for quadtracking along the chat moss line. but it *appears* thats been changed to that now.
You’ve hit on an interesting point there about population who benefits. One of the difficult things with any transport project is determining
exactly how many people stand to benefit. The reality is of course you can’t accurately measure it, but you can model for example the number of people who stand to use both a) the new infrastructure itself and b) the positive externalities it creates.
With something like CNP, the figure if 8 million is picked from the city regions and towns the network would serve, which is essentially the conurbations you mentioned and the nearby towns.
In LCR, GM and WY, most people are within 30 minutes of accessing the “intercity” style trains the programme is designed to serve. In the case of Phase One through Manchester, that enables a much more frequent metro-style service on existing lines. Whilst the population remains the same, the service levels within GM and its hinterlands will increase. Long-term we can expect further increases in population density along those corridors as they become more attractive to property developers and of course the desire to live there by potential residents who as of now, would prefer say Wilmslow or Stockport over Gatley or Mauldeth Road which see very low frequencies into the city centre due to the line being used to send almost empty intercity trains from Piccadilly to the Airport to terminate.
One thing we did in the initial analysis was where the biggest problems were, and what interventions would be required to solve them. Starting from the “do nothing” scenario all the way to things like new routing options to give Victoria better access to South Manchester (following on from and using the Recovery Taskforce options as a baseline) grade separated junctions, Metrolink conversions and even as far as monorails or as little as cycling lanes. We looked at:
-What is the problem?
-What are the conditional outputs?
-What solutions meet those targets?
Then model various options to see what performs the best all options considered. It is from there that the original concept was born, and from where it evolved to what we have now.
An example of one of the options looked at is this one, which was based on better connecting Victoria to the south and using that for intercity E-W services removing flat junctions and congestion on castlefield. Find it attached along with what we have now “Option B+”
You can see the positives of this option, but also the notable downsides that failed to meet the main conditional outputs which fall under: operational, economic and political.
Of course the next step is to commission an “in-house” study by a governmental department or local transport authority I.e TfGM. At the moment as has been stated the focus is very much on other priorities at the moment, and so commissioning such a study using public sector money seems unlikely any time soon, but is most definitely not off the table should there be an alternative required for NPR following it’s poor progression, or as an alternative to the castlefield upgrade programme (which is still a thing) that is beginning to look impossible in its original form now following intense development along the corridor with large buildings and even skyscraper either just built or being built right up against the corridor with no room for the proposed 4-tracking. (That being another option studied)
Hopefully that helps in seeing how we’ve come to the conclusion we have, and the concept as presented today.
George.
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