Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has unveiled plans for the future of transport and growth in the region.
It includes a major new extension to the Bee Network by bringing rail lines under local control, a move to a fully integrated London-style transport system and future plans for tube travel.
The mayor said the region was in the midst of a transport “revolution” that would involve everyone around Greater Manchester.
READ MORE: New map shows plan for Metrolink expansion across Greater Manchester
He added that Greater Manchester was growing “faster than the UK economy” and that the new announcements were a plan to boost growth.
All buses in the region are due to fall to the Bee Network by January 5, including services in Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and the rest of Manchester and Salford – with some new lower fares to be introduced for commuters.
The Bee Network was launched in Wigan, Bolton and parts of Bury, Salford and Manchester in September last year as Greater Manchester became the first area to bring buses under local control following deregulation in 1986.
Commuters will see a small price cut, with unlimited travel on Bee Network bus services £20 for seven days for an adult and £10 for a child – compared to £21 and £10.50 currently.
28-day travel will be more than £5 cheaper for adults – from £85.40 (£42.70 child) to £80 (£40 per child).
The new ‘loader’ tickets are part of bus franchise plans from January 5, which will allow people to use the same ticket on as many Bee Network buses as they want for an hour, at the existing price of £2 for adults and £1 for children and concessions .
Half-price monthly bus passes for 18 to 21-year-olds are also to be announced, supporting the route to technical education through Greater Manchester Baccalaureate qualifications.
The move to a fully contactless tap payment system on buses has been pushed back to mid-March, with Mr Burnham postponing the “big bang” day when the entire Bee Network will be in place.
The mayor said it would be “too much of a risk” to launch everything on the same day, shortly after Christmas.
The Bee Network will be extended to Greater Manchester railways, with eight lines under local control with rolling contactless payments by 2028 and “full launch” by 2030.
The eight starting lines are Wigan via Bolton; Wigan via Atherton; Wigan via Golborne; AIRPORT; Alderley Edge and Buxton via Stockport; Glossop; Hadfield and Rose Hill Marple via Guide Bridge; Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge; and Rochdale.
This will improve rail services, according to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), with a minimum of two trains per hour at each train station, integrated fares and new trains.
The mayor said he had written to new Premier Keir Starmer to say he believed this was how the region could “deliver more for less” by using devolved powers.
He added that the eight rail lines brought under local control are currently subsidized to the tune of around £100m a year, with some lines “bringing in a good degree of fresh air”, partly due to the cost of train travel.
It will give commuters “more bang for their buck” if they can connect to their train station and ride trams and buses built into the fare, which the mayor says will increase ridership and help reduce the subsidy required.
Plans for a new train station in Golborne are still in play and the mayor has pledged to seek permission from the new Transport Minister for work to begin.
The new station in Cheadle is due to be delivered by 2026-27.
Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has also outlined a ‘Rapid Transit’ scheme to create new bus, tram and train routes in the region.
This is part of 15 emerging priorities for new, extended and rebuilt lines, including the introduction of tram and train services to link light and heavy rail networks and the potential for major new tunnel capacity.
Plans are afoot to move Metrolink to Stockport, Heywood, Middleton and Bolton, although business cases for these are still being prepared with updates expected by the end of 2024.
Other options for future expansion of Metrolink include running trams to Port Salford and connecting Bury, Oldham and Rochdale around the Atom Valley shopping centre.
Among the announcements was that Vernon Everitt and Dame Sarah Storey were re-appointed Greater Manchester’s Transport and Active Tourism Commissioners to oversee the next phase of Bee Network delivery.
The announcement comes as the latest figures show the Bee Network is providing a more reliable bus service than before it came under local control, with the number of people using them growing.
Over the past six months, the number of people using buses in Bee Network areas has increased by 5 per cent, according to TfGM, with the week ending May 18 seeing the highest weekly boost since the franchise began, with more than 849,000 passenger journeys.
Service punctuality is also improving, according to the statistics, with more than 80% of services running on time between April 28 and June 23 this year, compared to 68.7% for the same period 12 months ago.
Mr Everitt said bringing rail lines under local control by 2028 would make getting around Greater Manchester feel “fundamentally different”.
He added: “This is part of this Bee Network strategy, which is a driver of growth and productivity.
“Transport doesn’t stand in isolation, it doesn’t run for its own purposes, it’s the enabler of everything else that Greater Manchester is trying to provide.”
Mr Everitt announced that new rolling stock would be created to help expand Metrolink services as well as tram capacity.
He continued: “The next four years will see further rapid improvements to transport for people and businesses in the region.
“This includes the completion of Metrolink, bus, train and active travel connections into a connected Bee Network, all linked by simple and affordable fares, ticketing and customer information. We will also continue to focus on the safety and security of customers and employees.”
All train stations in the region are also to be made accessible by 2040.
Despite the plans, Mr Burnham said there was a risk that a lack of transport links and capacity would eventually become a “barrier to growth” in the city region.
He said: “I would point out the need to go underground at some point. Not doing everything on the surface, as the second city anywhere in Europe has done in recent decades, has gone underground to support continued economic growth and not limit the economic growth that a place like Greater Manchester can have.
“I am not averse to taking these messages to the new government because we now have a government that has a growth mission and Greater Manchester is ready to play its full part in that.”
“In fact, we are prepared to play more than our part because I have already offered to the Prime Minister that we will build above Greater Manchester’s share of the 1.5 million homes which is the Government’s overall target for this Parliament.
“If we’re going to do that, we’re going to need a much greater level of decentralization and financial support to be able to build the infrastructure in the way we’ve described.”
He added: “I believe that by the middle of this century Greater Manchester will have to go underground if we are to continue to build the economic power of this large and rapidly growing urban region, there is no point in holding back and saying so.
“Now it’s not about unrealistic offers for funding, it’s about saying that [we need] a tube station at Piccadilly and tunnelling, and greater underground rapid transit across the entire city region is being considered.
“With the phase that we’ve outlined today, we can smartly increase capacity without going to that level, but there comes a point where we’re now thinking beyond this phase of the Bee Network and where it’s going to go, and we” In the years to come, I’ll still be having these conversations build more.”
A Greater Manchester Combined Authority report on the plans said the cost of tunnel travel options “would be multi-billion”, but that they could be “less than the longer tunnel required for the Elizabeth line”.
He added: “A lot of work needs to be done on the business case for any such investment.”
Luke Bramwell, head of rapid transit development at TfGM, said plans for the underground network were in the “early stages” but the proposal “must remain open”.
He added: “There is a lot of pressure on Metrolink from the south west to the north east, so the starting point is to look at trams, but obviously we also have plans to introduce tram trains to some of them. routes and there are options to bring in rail lines so it needs to be kept open and flexible.
“On the north-west to south-east axis, the key push is around the Castlefield corridor, so I think the soon-to-be work that we have is leaning much more towards a regional metro-type service – that’s trains – but both need to be open.
“It’s early days, but we need to respond to the fact that capacity pressures and growth constraints need to be addressed in the middle of this century.”