Transport in Manchester

Transport In Manchester

The transport infrastructure of Manchester is built up of numerous transport modes and forms an integral part of the structure of Greater Manchester and North West England - the most populated region outside of South East England. Its position as a national city of commerce, education and cultural importance means the city has one of the largest and most thorough transport infrastructures which is heavily relied upon by its 2.5 million inhabitants in the Greater Manchester conurbation and further afield in the North West region. Public transport comes under the jurisdiction of Transport for Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester has a higher percentage of the motorway network than any other county. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it has the most traffic lanes side by side (17), spread across several parallel carriageways - the M61 at Linnyshaw Moss, Greater Manchester, close to the M60 interchange (the M60 is one of only two motorways in the UK designated as an 'Orbital Motorway, (the other being the M25 around London).

Greater Manchester still has an extensive citywide railway network with two mainline termini (Victoria and Piccadilly) and four through mainline railway stations in the central area (Deansgate, Salford Central, Salford Crescent and Oxford Road). Its central location means the city acts as a key bypass for rail to cities such as Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Ultimately Manchester sits at a rail bottleneck, and it is hoped investment in the proposed £560 million Northern Hub from 2013 to 2019 by Network Rail will alleviate this. Upgrades include electrification of three lines radiating from Manchester, a new rail line linking all stations in the Manchester station group and a new role for Manchester Victoria station.

Manchester Airport is the busiest airport outside the London region and has double the annual passenger figures of its nearest rival, making the airport the third busiest overall in the United Kingdom after Heathrow and Gatwick. The city also has an extensive network of canal systems which converge into Manchester. The Manchester Ship Canal, built in 1894, is the 8th largest ship canal in the world and is incomparable to any other canal in the United Kingdom which are mostly built for narrowboats and barges.

It was the first city in the United Kingdom to re-introduce trams to the streets with the 1992 opening of Manchester Metrolink, which is currently undergoing a major revamp and by 2015 the system will be the largest in the UK with at least 99 stops (72 more than in 2010) with 4 new lines currently being constructed and another line to the Trafford Centre envisaged. No underground system exists in Manchester, however this was proposed on numerous occasions before the Metrolink tram system was built.