New Metrolink routes after second city crossing.

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Given the millions of people who use these Out Of Town shopping centres, there are lots of different types of shoppers (and a number of people who aren't even going there to buy physical products that they'll be taking home with them) - horses for courses - there's a market for 4x4s, for taxis, for light rail, for buses... not everyone is like you.

I am not sure if that is a compliment or an admonishment at the end of your posting, so looking at a single unit tram service with the envisaged frequency will in fact be yet another transport mode in addition to all other modes to be used when finally operational.

Your residence in Sheffield certainly gives you a good knowledge of how the Sheffield Supertram serves the Meadowhall facility, which also has the advantage of having a heavy rail railway station.

 

[Chester1]

I am not sure if that is a compliment or an admonishment at the end of your posting, so looking at a single unit tram service with the envisaged frequency will in fact be yet another transport mode in addition to all other modes to be used when finally operational.

Your residence in Sheffield certainly gives you a good knowledge of how the Sheffield Supertram serves the Meadowhall facility, which also has the advantage of having a heavy rail railway station.

There is also a very new Waxis service taking a leisurely 45 minutes to travel from Castlefield to Trafford Centre by boat!

I suspect the line would not be built if were not for private sector contributions. You are right that it will only carry a small proportion of Trafford Centre visitors but it will be enough to justify a single tram service and hopefully attract more development to other parts of Trafford Park. It opens up the potential for extending to Port Salford which would not justify a link on its own. Trafford Park is also the only serious contender for the remaining Metrolink capacity from the west. Leigh barely justifies the busway and Walkden would be fortunate to get a busway. The existing three lines have plenty of potential capacity through doubling all services. Trafford Park and certainly extension to Port Salford bring that side of the network to completion and no other potential new lines have attracted private sector contribution offers.

 

[Altfish]

There is also a very new Waxis service taking a leisurely 45 minutes to travel from Castlefield to Trafford Centre by boat!

I thought it was Sale to Castlefield?

 

[WatcherZero]

At the moment they do two morning and evening commuter runs to/from Sale then switch to Trafford centre runs during the day time.

 

[HSTEd]

Pity we can't have an Oxford Road tram route. That wouldn't hurt for traffic

 

[Bletchleyite]

Pity we can't have an Oxford Road tram route. That wouldn't hurt for traffic

Yes, I'd be in support of one running down Oxford Road/Street as far as East Didsbury interchange, with a corresponding ban on buses.

 

[ivanhoe]

I am not sure if that is a compliment or an admonishment at the end of your posting, so looking at a single unit tram service with the envisaged frequency will in fact be yet another transport mode in addition to all other modes to be used when finally operational.

Your residence in Sheffield certainly gives you a good knowledge of how the Sheffield Supertram serves the Meadowhall facility, which also has the advantage of having a heavy rail railway station.

Interesting observation but given queues from the M1 at certain times, I would argue for all the transport modes going to Meadowhall, the car is still king. Meadowhall is a shopping centre that happens to be near Sheffield but probably attracts customers from a much wider geographical base. I suspect after talking to people I know, the Trafford Centre is similar. The tram will certainly be useful for workers at the Trafford Centre.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Interesting observation but given queues from the M1 at certain times, I would argue for all the transport modes going to Meadowhall, the car is still king. Meadowhall is a shopping centre that happens to be near Sheffield but probably attracts customers from a much wider geographical base. I suspect after talking to people I know, the Trafford Centre is similar. The tram will certainly be useful for workers at the Trafford Centre.

It is said that the Manchester Metrolink Airport line fulfils that same aspiration for those who work at Manchester Airport, especially as it serves much of the various areas of Wythenshawe and now has very early services from Firswood to the airport specifically for those working there with a very early shift start time.

 

[HSTEd]

Yes, I'd be in support of one running down Oxford Road/Street as far as East Didsbury interchange, with a corresponding ban on buses.

You would have to demolish the curry mile, route significantly around it or tunnel under it as I don't think its wide enough to retain an access lane and I am not sure all the stores have rear loading access.

That is the only real critical bottleneck on the route as far as I can tell.

 

[PermitToTravel]

Withington High Street, too. Many would be happy to see the curry mile razed, but that couldn't really be said of the latter.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Metrolink fantasy thread on the SkyScraperCity website once had a number of postings with regard to a fantasy Oxford Road Metrolink extension which fortunately had a number of realists making postings as a check on this particular aspiration.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You would have to demolish the curry mile, route significantly around it or tunnel under it as I don't think its wide enough to retain an access lane and I am not sure all the stores have rear loading access.

That is the only real critical bottleneck on the route as far as I can tell.

Cars (access only) and trams can certainly share a piece of road. That's one of the reasons for having trams in the first place. Buses of course could be banned specifically.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The Metrolink fantasy thread on the SkyScraperCity website once had a number of postings with regard to a fantasy Oxford Road Metrolink extension which fortunately had a number of realists making postings as a check on this particular aspiration.

It's only a fantasy because TfGM are nervous of turning a commercial bus operation into a tram line requiring of subsidy. It's otherwise perfectly feasible, and would have a positive regeneration benefit of some of the rougher areas, too.

The other place to stick one would be down the A6 to Stockport, though that would be harder to keep cars out of the way.

 

[edwin_m]

A tramway that is 100% sharing with other traffic doesn't really deliver much benefit compared with a bus. It might cover operating costs (most UK tramways do) but there is also the large capital cost to consider.

The extent to which general traffic can be restricted depends on essential access, particularly if there are houses with no off-street parking or businesses with no delivery option other than the main road. Unless the road is wide enough to allow for laybys, either of these will effectively rule out a street tramway. I don't know the curry mile well enough to say whether it qualifies on either count.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It's only a fantasy because TfGM are nervous of turning a commercial bus operation into a tram line requiring of subsidy. It's otherwise perfectly feasible, and would have a positive regeneration benefit of some of the rougher areas, too.

The other place to stick one would be down the A6 to Stockport, though that would be harder to keep cars out of the way.

Talk of a Metrolink line down either Oxford Road (which conveniently ignores the disruption to the University campus areas) or the A6 to Stockport, with what has happened in reality time-wise in the 2CC line works on Corporation Street and Cross Street, totally ignores the disruption to the life of the communities and their transport needs during construction and a possible need for utilities to be relocated, this being on top of the cost of the said constructions, not forgetting the need to purchase even more trams to actually run these services which also bears a cost.

Any talk of the subjugation of bus services in those areas totally ignores the way that TfGM include bus service provision as part of their master public transport plans for the region, which I as one being resident exterior to the land of the TfGM empire, do fully understand.

 

[HSTEd]

Withington High Street, too. Many would be happy to see the curry mile razed, but that couldn't really be said of the latter.

I am not sure you would even go that far south.
90% of the traffic stops something in the vicinity of Fallowfield or Didsbury anyway.

You could loop around the Owens Park campus in a one way loop with a major bus/interchange station at the huge Armitage Sports Centre Car Park/sports fields for example.
The bus routes are a slow moving disaster as present however, and I very much doubt the "Bus Priority" scheme will significantly improve matters.

 

[PermitToTravel]

Withington High Street is between Fallowfield and Didsbury. A sizable proportion of the passengers are going some way south of Owen's Park.

 

[Starmill]

It's only a fantasy because TfGM are nervous of turning a commercial bus operation into a tram line requiring of subsidy. It's otherwise perfectly feasible, and would have a positive regeneration benefit of some of the rougher areas, too.

The other place to stick one would be down the A6 to Stockport, though that would be harder to keep cars out of the way.

The tram is operated on a more commercial basis than you might think, from the point of view of paying the interest on GMCA's bonds and the absence of an operating subsidy. That arguably comes first (hence tram fares easily double competing bus fares). What comes second is a reduction in car use. TfGM do not care about Bus > Tram because it does not fulfill their objective of getting people to use trams instead of cars.

Oxford Road has just had all of the investment it is going to get. Unfortunately.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

TfGM do not care about Bus > Tram because it does not fulfill their objective of getting people to use trams instead of cars.

But not in Heywood or Middleton, especially the town centre areas, it seems.

 

[HSTEd]

Withington High Street is between Fallowfield and Didsbury. A sizable proportion of the passengers are going some way south of Owen's Park.

Oh right sorry - I get a little confused with the designations down there.
A significant proportion do go south of Owens Park - but only for a couple of hundred yards in most cases, by the time the bus reaches Withington Library a large fraction of the passengers have already disembarked.

If you turned a large number of the trams back in Fallowfield ("Student specials" or somesuch) you could single track the 290m of the Withington High Street between the barbers shop at the road fork and the library, where the road opens out considerably.

At that point you could then have a single track loop similar to the existing bus routes.

EDIT:
Although to be honest the best solution is probably a tunneled Light-Metro using something like a VAL with stops every few hundred metres - combined with a covered walkway on the surface.
But we won't ever get that as that would be very expensive.

 

[Altfish]

Trams are 'premium' public transport
Students mainly do 'cheap', they are not a market that is likely to pay; they'll stick to the bus.

 

[WatcherZero]

The tram is operated on a more commercial basis than you might think, from the point of view of paying the interest on GMCA's bonds and the absence of an operating subsidy. That arguably comes first (hence tram fares easily double competing bus fares). What comes second is a reduction in car use. TfGM do not care about Bus > Tram because it does not fulfill their objective of getting people to use trams instead of cars.

Oxford Road has just had all of the investment it is going to get. Unfortunately.

Course they care about Bus>Tram, that's why they've built so many transport interchanges where you can change in the same building.

 

[Starmill]

I think you've missed the point. These promote journeys where people use the tram and a bus to make it easier for them than driving (the ultimate in integrated transport let's not forget). It's still promoting people using the tram. My point was they don't care if lots of people use the bus still, there's an interchange at Ashton, but lots of people get the bus to Manchester from there rather than the tram. Why? Because it's so much cheaper. The tram is not there to capture modal shift from buses. It's there to get people out of their cars.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

My point was they don't care if lots of people use the bus still, there's an interchange at Ashton, but lots of people get the bus to Manchester from there rather than the tram. Why? Because it's so much cheaper. The tram is not there to capture modal shift from buses. It's there to get people out of their cars.

There are a good number of Stagecoach Manchester bus services running from Ashton bus station and the reason why many public transport users on those services do not consider the use of the tram is that they have purchased a Stagecoach Megarider weekly ticket, which is not valid for use on the tram.

For example, my wife has a friend who lives in the border area between Denton and Ashton area whose 20 year old grandson uses a Stagecoach Megarider ticket on the 347 Stagecoach bus to Ashton then the Stagecoach bus from Ashton to Manchester (and the subsequent return journeys) on six days every week to travel to and from work. A total of four Stagecoach buses a day. That Megarider ticket is valid for use on all the Stagecoach services.

 

[edwin_m]

There are a good number of Stagecoach Manchester bus services running from Ashton bus station and the reason why many public transport users on those services do not consider the use of the tram is that they have purchased a Stagecoach Megarider weekly ticket, which is not valid for use on the tram.

For example, my wife has a friend who lives in the border area between Denton and Ashton area whose 20 year old grandson uses a Stagecoach Megarider ticket on the 347 Stagecoach bus to Ashton then the Stagecoach bus from Ashton to Manchester (and the subsequent return journeys) on six days every week to travel to and from work. A total of four Stagecoach buses a day. That Megarider ticket is valid for use on all the Stagecoach services.

That's an example of our dis-integrated transport system - if the two bus routes happened to have different operators your grandson would be paying a lot more (and Stagecoach could decide to pull out of either route at any time).

Ideally the fares would be inter-available between bus operators. As suggested above, even in a fully integrated fare system there might still be a desire to charge a higher fare for Metrolink to reflect the faster journey. Bus-only fares could then still be lower for those who are more concerned about price than time.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Ideally the fares would be inter-available between bus operators. As suggested above, even in a fully integrated fare system there might still be a desire to charge a higher fare for Metrolink to reflect the faster journey. Bus-only fares could then still be lower for those who are more concerned about price than time.

Indeed you are most correct as Metrolink is regarded as a more "premium limited-stop" mode of transport compared to bus services and as such, commercially makes charges accordingly.

 

[Altfish]

Gauge testing on 2CC started last night

 

[daodao]

Course they care about Bus>Tram, that's why they've built so many transport interchanges where you can change in the same building.

Using the bus and tram for work journeys is very expensive, as there no longer a "multi-ride" ticket valid for both modes before 0930 am. In addition, apart from a few key routes, bus services are very infrequent; for example, the local feeder buses into Altrincham interchange are now only hourly.

 

[Starmill]

A Stagecoach Manchester Megarider (7 Days) is £13.50 now isn't it? An Ashton to City Zone Metrolink only 7 Day Season is £22. This could have 'buscard extra' added for £8 I think, so it would be £30 a week for the benefit of any bus and trams Ashton to City Zone. So significantly more expensive for very small time saving.

 

[Beeks]

It is a pity that Airport services are not proceeding to Victoria initially, especially as tram 3120 is already in stock.

I have heard that driver training is to start pretty much first thing in the new year.

It does indeed, I start January 9th

 

[Andyh82]

The Metrolink fantasy thread on the SkyScraperCity website once had a number of postings with regard to a fantasy Oxford Road Metrolink extension which fortunately had a number of realists making postings as a check on this particular aspiration.

They could have kept the old trams, painted them blue and called them Magic Trams, with lower fares!