Two more reasons not to use public transport:
I’ve just found this gem on a Manchester Evening News Article from last year:
Oldham and Rochdale may not pay any congestion charges until Metrolink extensions to their town centres are complete. Other outlying areas – such as Stockport, which hopes to get a Metrolink line in the future – are also likely to avoid the charges for the first year.
Yet there is no mention of other outlying areas, such as Bolton and Wigan, who will NEVER get the Metrolink, yet are getting no such exemption.
Is it any wonder, Bolton and Wigan don’t want to be lumped in as part of Greater Manchester when they are discriminated against in this way?
As it happens, it would appear that AGMA have reneged on this exemption and only Trafford Park is getting a 50% discount until they get some more buses, but this clearly shows how some areas are considered more equal than others.
I saw this letter in the Bolton News from none other than Lord Peter Smith, Leader of AGMA, once again reeling off the usual false statements:
While we believe the strengths of the TIF package speak for themselves…
It still amazes me how they make it sound as if they actually believe their own bull.
In Bolton, … Extra seats would be added to peak time trains
Already getting them mate – nothing to do with the TIF.
and an earlier morning train could operate from Clitheroe to Manchester via Bolton in the mornings to further ease overcrowding.
Wow! A Whole Train! I can hardly contain my excitement. Also note the word ‘could’.
Bolton station could undergo extensive improvements, with new platforms built on the Wigan line at Lostock station. Passenger facilities at Hall i’th’ Wood, Bromley Cross, Lostock, Blackrod and Westhoughton stations could be improved.
There’s that word ‘could’ again, twice this time. I’m not particularly interested in improved facilities at Blackrod. I just want to turn up and get on a train.
cyclists will see the creation of a high quality route along the former Bolton-Bury rail line.
How about a rail line along a rail line (there’s a novelty) and reverse some of the damage caused by Dr Beeching?
Across Greater Manchester, the package will deliver thousands of extra seats on trains and trams, new Metrolink lines
Extra seats we’re already getting and Metrolink lines we won’t.
and a travel smart card system.
Perfectly achievable without congestion charges by politicians with the balls to make the bus/train companies comply – ah wait, I see the problem with that last statement.
To help fund this, a limited congestion charge would be introduced, affecting vehicles heading towards the city centre between 7am and 9.30am and away from the city centre between 4pm and 6.30pm, for five hours out of every 24.
Please, please, everyone quoting this last remark, get it through your thick skulls: There is nothing limited about a congestion charge which is in force for FIVE HOURS during the working day, and 100% of the time that most workers will be travelling.
Stop claiming it is limited.
Plans to expand Manchester Metrolink have today been scrapped by the Government in favour of London’s Crosslink.
Yet more evidence of the north/south divide attitude of the Government.
Londoners don’t know they’re born with the Underground. London has a perfectly good mass transport system that every other city in the UK would gladly accept, yet the government is not satisfied with throwing another £10 billion at London, it wants to kick the rest of the country (north of Watford gap) in the teeth by scrapping any chances of catching up.
It seems I’m not the only one to think so.
Manchester has just been mugged for £200 million. Somehow I don’t think the guilty will be brought to justice – David Blunkett is Home Secretary, and we know where he stands on accepting responsibility for his own failings. (Humberside Police chief being made scapegoat for Blunkett’s failing to organise a coordinated National Police Force)