Bee Network sets next round of tram expansions in motion

“As for the north-west extension, the three schemes under consideration are a tram between Salford Quays and Salford Crescent, a tram between the regional centre to Salford Crescent,”
Why not a tram between Salford Quays and the regional centre, via Salford Crescent? It seems both parts of the route are needed.

I would use the Salford Quays to Salford Crescent line, therefore TfGM should fully pursue that options and no others until it is completed

Buses are best. Few folk live within walking distance of tram stops and taking a bus to get to a tram stop is daft. Frequent buses are best for trips up to 5 miles. Express buses to connect town centers (whatever happened to Express Services?)

If they’re proposing a station at Cheadle they should also build one at Baguley for connection with Metrolink; running a regular Hale-Stalybridge service via Baguley/Cheadle/Stockport/Denton/Guide Bridge would open up a ton of regional connectivity which currently relies on going through Manchester city centre.

We’re desperate in Leigh for the metrolink

Meanwhile back in Steve Rotherham’s Liverpool we’re picking up the crumbs of long buses in 2028. Heartbreaking.

Meanwhile, Denton has 1 train a week despite being next to one of the most congested roads into the city

Pffft. It’s no bendy bus.

Needs a line to Oldham and Stockport from Ashton. Definitely Oldham. My only way to get to schools in that direction is going into Piccadilly then back up same direction but slightly across taking over an hour on most journies, longer in some areas. If you’re wanting people to drive less this needs sorting out.

What about Middleton???

As the story states, pre strategic outline business case work is commencing to explore transport links in Middleton. This is supposed to wrap up by the end of autumn.

August 15, 2025 at 8:17 am

By Julia Hatmaker

Yet there are still many areas of central Manchester that don’t have a tram or train service. Longsight, Fallowfield, Rusholme, Moss Side. Surely these places should be the priority

Put bolton on the map and give is a tram line

Why did they rip all the old railway lines up?

Great, more stops on already slow lines to spend more time away from my family

I suggest they get ticketing sorted out so they you actually buy the tickets offered.

The blue line is mostly on the road & not a tram unfortunately. At least we have buses more often now I suppose.

The tram-train options look really interesting, especially the airport link continuing to Cheshire. Tram-train works so well in Kassel and Karlsrühe in Germany. The simplicity of boarding a vehicle in a rural area which looks and behaves like a train, and then behaves like a tram in the city and takes you up to the high street, so to speak.

Yet again Middleton on back burner.Middleton only has busses no train station or trams.
The likes of stockport has both as like most other towns .

Trams have no place in Stockport. It is not a city centre. The elderly and disabled people will feel extremely unsafe as they cause a huge amount of accidents. They will be the source of bringing criminals in from the inner cities and people will be too afraid to go out. It is a disaster waiting to happen and at whose expense.

It would be a nice start of they just put air conditioning on the current trams!

I see that Bolton still being missed by metro link..
Promised in the 90s.

Bolton is included in one of the options for the north-west link, as mentioned in the story.

August 15, 2025 at 8:15 am

By Julia Hatmaker

Great for middleton

Does anyone know what GMCA means by “Northern Gateway”? Is it Victoria North or Atom Valley?

What about Partington? One road in , 3 buses . Its ridiculous to get to Manchester everyday totally cut off .. not even walkable to another town . Ridiculous

Get the Bolton line done it’ll ease traffic on the 666

Great idea, but with experience of current workings better to be above ground rather than as we already have

Why that long wait

What about Gorton or Middleton? I cant see why they want more trams to the airport when those areas I mentioned need it. Hasn’t Middleton been proposed many times before but nothing has come of it.

The loser in this is Hyde and Denton

Bolton should have been connected to the Metrolink with an extension from Bury but greedy housebuilders over the years have built all over the old line. Poor long term vision.

What is the point of steam to Stockport when there is already a bus (192) every few minutes?

Partington residents are desperate for better connections. The 280, our one bus service which avoided Manchester Road which is permanently under repair, was cancelled when the bee network took over.

Partington and Carrington need to be linked better into the Bee Network. Just one daily midnight 255 bus from Manchester Piccadilly Gardens to Partington would be of massive help. The current daily last bus at 22:55 is hopeless and stressful when attending shows and concerts in the city centre.

Yet more green spaces robbed by the labour government!

Who wants to go to Bolton?! There’s nothing there! The towns gone thanks to the council. Tram plans must not impact what little green belt is left. No where for wildlife, green spaces to enjoy & walk in as it is. Trans only needed if the town is worth visiting.

You will never get a driver out of His car. A car is safer & can get you to a destination on time. Public transport only goes so far. Also, there are more delays with it.

As welcome the Leigh Guided busway was it’s not the tram! leigh had a rail link into Manchester that was cut when the M63 was built! the line is still more or less intact apart from the last bit! and now with the endless hold ups on the East lanc’s Road it should be a contender to bring the west of the city into the tram network

The Rochdale to Bolton line via Bury , a missed opportunity, most of the Bury to Bolton section is built on and Radcliffe to Bolton, the trackbed from the tram stop was demolished and built over ,
It seems that a real metrolink success story has been completely thrown away, by short sighted 1960s roads only policy ,In my opinion, you need to do what they did in Poland ,
Put everything you threw away, BACK

Wythenshawe is massive. The Baguley suburb ( which is home to Wythenshawe Hospital) currently only has 1 direct bus into Manchester ( 101). The tram is great if you live near a tram stop, otherwise it’s a 1 to 2 mile walk to get to it, or a bus to get to the tram 🙄. Our nearext neighbour, Northenden, about a mile away, takes 2 buses to get to. There used to be a trainline from Baguley, connecting Northenden, Cheadle etc. Can this not be re opened?
Otherwise, could we have another bus that goes to Manchester via Northenden, without the necessity to go to civic centre first. Also, the only bus to Stockport, 11, takes over an hour to get there, and seems to skirt around the edge of Baguley, not serve it. It’s a half hour walk to the nearest bus stop, then a massive journey. Maybe put the Stockport bus back along Altrincham road, or better still, run it through the estate.

Appreciate everyone is most motivated by their own patch, but desperate for improvement in swinton/pendleton connection to city centre. Struggle to get in or back in less than 50 minutes for a journey that is less than 4 miles. Trying to do it multimodal from salford crescent is incredibly expensive and not feasible at peak times.

Would personally prioritise over connection to the quays, but appreciate that links to pendleton/crescent aren’t great.

Can a tram from Eccles be carried on to join the busway at Tyldesley, the old railway to Leigh. It should have been done before the money wasted on the “part” guided busway. Golborne is a far out of Leigh as Atherton, although close to me. The tram system is great going north, east and south of Manchester, but hardly any west. Think of the people it would please and good for the future traffic problems.

Please consider tram line from center manchester to Stockport via ardwick-longsight Levenshulme etc

Yesss please get an underground system going, trams are too slow. The underground system if good enough will reduce car congestion in the city centre and increase footfall too like all major cities.

I think we can all agree, there should be no further talk of an underground system. Andy Burnhams obsession with Manchester to mirror London is bordering on dillusional.

Well that got the debate going..’we do want it , ‘we don’t want it’ , ‘it should go here’ ‘ it should go there’. I’m sorry people,but you have the illusion of power but the reality of none whatsoever. I for one welcome the continued development of Manchester’s transport network but I’ll leave it to the professionals…although not the ones who ‘planned’ HS2. Admittedly a much tougher assignment but errm..leave em on the bench for now.

No Darren, I don’t think we can all agree.

It is almost still impossible without several changes and taking several hours to get across south Manchester east-west..
Many hospital appointments etc are in wythenshaw and these areas but to go from Denton you have to use a taxi.. public transport is dreadful
Even a journey of a mile or so going to chorlton takes an hour…that is an urgent problem

What is now the fallowfield loop should have been made a tram /cycle pathway years ago.. taking away the lines was madness as now the east west connections are just not there..
And forget putting a tram through longsight… it has the best bus service, no-one wants to go there and the traffic is insane as it is

The trams should have been put underground in the center decades ago.. there’s too many people and it’s dangerous in town.. at least underneath the Piccadilly area

What has happened to the Metrolink extension from Ashton under Lyne to Stalybridge that was on the original expansion plan.

What about a link from Rochdale to Shoreham by Bury.

Congleton

Just reading some of the comments here, it’s clear to see why this country has fallen so far behind. Any mention of progress that causes even minor disruption to the older elite gets absolutely torn apart and harassed by the NIMBY’s. God I hope the next generation is more adaptable and open to change otherwise we’re doomed. This isn’t just about you, it’s for the betterment of Manchester, the country and the planet in general. Get a grip!

What about a tram link from droylsden to me mams house in prestwich long overdue if you ask me

What Manchester needs is an Underground system not a third rate team system.

Realistic saying less than 5 new stations hahahahaha

Extend the tram from Parrswood to Stockport, crossing the Mersey to pick up Cheadle on the way…

Looking at future metro map, No mention of a station in the centre of Middleton, Mills Hill which is noted is approximately 20 minutes walk from Middleton centre????

If they say Middleton is to have a tram stop, using Middleton train station this is approximately 20 minute walk from the centre so what is the point of Middleton having a tram route if you can’t get to it ???

Darren – no we can’t all agree. Greater Manchester should have had an underground system decades ago. Many city regions the size of Greater Manchester across the world have extensive underground transport systems, it makes perfect sense.

Stockport, interesting. Would they be considering going as far south as Macclesfield in the distant future?

Like the link to mid Cheshire bit. Manchester remember who pays for all this , including Burnham’s WASTED £104 million of our money on his now scrapped CAZ; the UK taxpayer not GM taxpayers. A criminal waste, which makes me ANGRY. At least give some crumbs beyond the GM border.

Once again MIDDLETON put on the back burner,SAD.

Is it possible to run a link to Royal Oldham hospital. Parking at the hospital and surrounding area is horrendous.

Maybe if they reinstated all the now lost bus routes that Stagecoach purged from the network when they were in charge of ahem , running it (into the ground) by consolidating 3 or 4 bus routes into 1 (therefore adding maybe 30 extra minutes to some journeys by having to go all round the houses to get from A to B ) might be a good starting point to get people back to using public transport rather than the car .

They need to do something about security on the current airport line. I recently took the tram back from the airport into town. As we passed through Wythenshawe a large gang of scallies got on who hadn’t bought tickets and subjected us (including several clearly terrified international tourists) to aggressive horseplay including throwing a full bottle of coke around the carriage, playing loud music on their phones, a couple of full on fights and bad language. No security to be seen. Everyone else staring at the floor/out of the window trying not to make eye contact until they got off. Not the best advertisement for the city.

A once used rail line from Cadishead out towards Skelton Junction in Timperley has been sitting there for decades doing nothing, with all the housing developments going up in Partington I would say this rail corridor should be reopened again as a Train/Tram link bur start it at Partington, even if it was a Partington to A56 in Timperley route would be good enough for many people

This is great news to get commuters out of the cars off the road, also gives opportunity for new starters in the system
Good Luck to all involved and thank you from a grateful user.

Since Wigan has been swallowed up into GM why will the NW extension not make Wigan a priority for a tram connection?

Truly brilliant initiative
Bee network is a wonderful thing

North west Manchester is the poor relative in this when are we getting a connection to the airport Stockport has a rail and bus service, Bolton has a rail connection, But leigh Atherton, and Tyldesley despite thier Size have no connection at all, all bar the guided busway that terminates in Manchester

Why do these people in Cheshire and Derbyshire, think that they are a priority for GM trams? They chose to remain in the shires. I would have preferred to remain in Lancashire but because we didn’t have a Tory MP we were forced into Greater Manchester. Congleton and Glossop, are no more entitled to a tram into Manchester, than people in Cornwall. The people in High Peak, should look to Derby if they want improved transport, or join Greater Manchester which they could easily do. Bolton, Middleton and Heywood are the priority and a crescent line linking these towns via Bury, Rochdale to Oldham.

Nothing for Middleton again

Leigh needs to be back on the rail network

Nothing for Lowton despite huge amount of house building.No extra infrastructure.We have to go to Leigh to get anywhere.Why can’t we get a V1bus from lane head to Manchester.Why can’t we get a bus directly to Warrington.Even if a station is opened at Golborne still a pain to get there.We want direct route from Lowton lane head

Take 1.5hrs to get into Manchester on the bus from my house in leigh. 40mins to drive to newton le willows and train in. Leigh needs a better connection.

I hope that the government doesn’t do an abrupt turn, as I recall Alistair Darling doing to Liverpool in 2005.

Nothing for Partington I have to get out of this place 🤣

We never get anything in Cadishead the forgotten end of greater Manchester 1 bus trains that are cancelled daily

What about Stalybridge

I suspect the art and science here is to do stuff that has strategic long term value (Oldham-Rochdale-Bury – Atom Valley), and stuff that will wash it’s face from Day One (hence why airport links are in there).

Why is the 312 is the only buses that gets taken off

Peter Jackson – the CAZ scheme in Greater Manchester was introduced by the last tory government, it was actually stopped by GM politians.

If this is the only positive thing Andy does for Manchester I’m all for it . We need to interconnect all of the boroughs though and not just hub and spoke them. I’d like to see a circular line, ideally utilising underground where appropriate. This is a nice start but the big picture remains unresolved yet.

We need our small town brought into the Bee Network with tram trains , the road network is so congested it can take over 2 hours to travel from Manchester to our homes . The guided bus way running from Leigh to Manchester should be a tram train network it should have ran from Leigh to Eccles tram interchange. It could have left the guided bus way onto the A580 leaving the A580
onto the old railway network running through Row Green then into Eccles

Will the metro link proposal from radcliff to bolton get the funding it needs. And if so where on ainsworth Road will it pass ?.