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Town centre’s £5m Metrolink facelift
Reporter: by ALAN SALTER
Date online: 27 July 2010
Oldham Council is to spend £5m on improving the town centre in preparation for the arrival of Metrolink in the spring of 2014.
Trams will be running on the old Oldham loop line by next autumn but new details have been finalised for the one-and-a-half-mile town centre route which will replace the railway between Mumps and Werneth three years later.
The council-funded work will include demolition of the subway at the Manchester Road roundabout with a replacement crossing at surface level and junction improvements and a new link access road between Yorkshire Street and Oldham Way at the Mumps end of the town centre.
There will also be a facelift for the town centre with new bollards, benches, litter bins and trees.
A report by officials for the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority states: “The scheme is integral to the regeneration of Oldham and the successful implementation of the Town Centre Masterplan.”
The trams extension will be fully compatible with the existing Metrolink network, and will be used by all trams, new and old. All the stops — Westwood, King Street, Oldham Central and Oldham Mumps — will have ticket vending machines, passenger information displays, public address equipment, CCTV cameras and passenger emergency call buttons.
There will be a tram every six minutes between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Saturday and every 12 minutes after 7pm.
The report adds: “The implementation of the Metrolink route through the town centre will enhance the town’s highway and pedestrian infrastructure along Union Street.
“This, in conjunction with improving access to the town centre via a new link road, will create better connectivity within the town centre and offer a stronger investment environment.”
And it goes on: “The extension will address the existing accessibility issues from the Mumps and Westwood areas to the town centre; improve the links between the town centre and the communities of South Chadderton, Shaw, Hollinwood and Failsworth; and will provide an attractive public transport alternative for car users wishing to access services and jobs in Oldham town centre.”
There are no plans to replace the old Werneth station with a tram stop and officials say that the area will be served by the Westwood stop.
To save money, trams will not use the tunnel between Manchester Street and the King Street stop and will instead go overground across the roundabout. And there will be a new interchange and park and ride site at the Mumps roundabout with the old Mumps railway viaduct to be demolished this autumn.
Comments
This is madness, at a time when education budgets are being cut, taxes going up and on the back of an unstable economy. Will somebody please tell me firstly how we can afford 5 million and secondly where this money will come from. Well I know it will come from the tax payer what I meant was, what council services will be cut. I suppose the only good thing about the Metrolink is that it will provide people the opportunity to get out of Oldham and shop elsewhere.
anyone fancy a bet as to how often they will actually run? 6 minutes sounds great but the reality is that the network only runs properly on about 10 days a year and times between trams are more like every 10 - 15 minutes. Pretty much the same times the trains ran, only it'll take twice as long and cost twice as much, but that's 'progress' isn't it ?
Pretty much the same times the trains ran, only it'll take twice as long and cost twice as much, but that's 'progress' isn't it ?"
Which says it all how many people actually wanted these slow, seatless monsters and has any word been mentioned about pricing? it was really cheap and quick to get into the city center by train but im expecting a fairly steep charge to use a tram. The council pulled a massive fast one with the trams. People should have been consulted first.
I would have thought the litter bins were pristine - all the rubbish is chucked on the floor in and around Oldham.
this has nightmare witten all over it. mumps is a major junction where 4 main routes meet. the current roundabout works fine with the pedestrian access routed underneath the road in (slightly dodgy) subways while the rail line goes overhead.
this proposed plan means all 3 forms of transport (foot, road and tram) will be clashing with each other and gridlock is inevitable.
im off to the bookies to see what price i can get for betting mumps will be a traffic nighmare very soon! its a dead cert
lets put it to the public and let us vote do we or do we not want trams or are the council scared the vote will go against them like the congestion charges i for one do not want the disruption that this is going to cause and what is there to come to oldham for there is nothing
Well unlike the bog-standard Oldham moaners above, I'm going to be upbeat about this, but what I'm looking for in terms of town centre improvements doesn't seem to be there. We need a covered walkway from Union St, up Peter St, to lead attractively to the shopping core.
Why, why, why do people complain whenever they do something to improve our Borough?
Is it just because they like to moan about everything in their lives or is it just so they can see their names on this website?
why don't you try and be positive about the tram coming and the benefits it will bring, and what about the improvements it will bring as well... well keep up the good work... many people I talk to do like what you are trying to do...
Stop Whinging and be grateful something positive is happening in Oldham for once !!!
I totally agree however about the ridiculous number of takeaways in Oldham Town Centre !!!! Union Street is as bad as Yorkshire Street.
And eventually you'll be able to go from Mumps to the North Pier at Blackpool,that would be some tram ride wouldn't it? Well you used to be able to do it on the train.
if there are improvements listed here could someone please tell me!
because all i see is one massive traffic jam waiting around the corner!
so whats been improved?
that and one big repair bill for union street buildings!
Well it looks like manchester road is going to be another congestion spot created by the buffoons in the highway agency. With reference to the shopping core what shopping core? Dirty fast food outlets and cheap tat on the stalls no thank you
This report is nthng more than a quango justifying it's existence and wasting millions in the process. Smacks of build it and they will come, when in reality no one will because there is nothing to bring people here. This is about Manchester being a hub, nothing else. No mention of the roads that will be given over to trams only. No mention of the massive gridlock that this will cause on an already bad bottleneck at Manchester St roundabout.
Where are these accesibility problems. Road and bus serves all parts of town, Cheapside, Mumps, Clegg St. Complete rubbish to say otherwise.
An absolute waste of central and local authority funds on a schem that will deliver nothing to Oldham. We couldn't even compete with Ashton to attract investment when the M60 came through, so who on earth thinks we can beat anyone with this hair brained scheme?
I read somwhere that Oldhamers are genetically programmed to moan, complain and to be totally negative. If this lot are representative of the 200,000+ residents in the Borough, whoever said it was correct.
Keith, why don't you clean your glasses before you go into Oldham then you will see:
the market, debenhams, atomic designer menswear, demolition, zutti fashion clothing, mann's quality furnishers, cane direct, b bohdan, burns jewellers ltd, sovereign pawnbroker & jeweller, burns jewellers, hc simpson & sons, dixons, market, card factory, clintons cards, rymans, the works, waterstones, wh smiths, costa coffee, greggs, morrelli’s, naked bean, rollers, ann summers,and many other stores...
And let's all remember again things like the big rally in Spindles when we thought we weren't going to get Metrolink.
Perhaps someone from Bury might come to shop in Oldham?
Leave Bury, with its fantastic market (Unlike Tommyfield), and larger shopping centre to catch a tram to Manchester.
Once in Manchester, with its massive selection of shops, they can board a tram to Oldham to see the usual array of town centre shops and see how well Oldham council have run down Tommyfield market.
On the bright side Oldham will get some people from Rochdale. Although it might be cheaper to drive & park rather than tram?
Thank you Celsus civic for providing a list of shops in Oldham. There was nothing on your list to change my view that I prefer to, and do regularly shop at John Lewis. There are no yobbos f-ing and jeffing, there is no mucus on the pavement, people speak rather than yell at each other, and staff do not address customers as mate/love/darlin'/petal/sweet'eart and the rest. Tram or no tram, I will never shop in Oldham.
are some of the 'usual' depressed moaners here relatives of those long lost residents who didnt want the trains to come to oldham 150 years ago? It will be the same again... in a few years- the metrolink will be something people can't live without. Can the luddites please drag themselves into the 21st century
Just exactly what does it take for Oldhamers to be happy with something.When I lived there it was one of the happiest places in the then County of Lancashire if not England.Seems to me that any type of improvement meets with opposition no matter how the council want to do it.
Looks like the old saying Owdum born and Owdum, bred strong in arm and weak in head really applies .I wonder what the Platt Brothers and Asa Lees would say.
Dave from Chadderton I hate to agree with you but there is a common beleif from people in neighbouring towns that Oldhamers have a reputation to whinge a lot, certainly my friends see things that way
When the Metrolink comes, why don't we treat ProDriver, fedupoldhamer,sin, flake, bluehobbit, Keith and the like to a one way ticket to Altrincham?
Celsus needs to have another look in the Spindles !!! Dixons left years ago !!!!!!
well lots of abuse and name calling! but no ones listed any improvements yet!
i can name two recent junctions over in rochdale that have supposidely been improved and they've both become traffic nightmares.
the one near the church and the one near tescos.
both used to be roundabouts with a subway underneath. now they have the ground level pedestrians and traffic lights.
this is what mups will be like, but with the metrolink too.
this will not work!
so go on then! where are the improvements?
Well AJH, we were as much in the 21st century with our train service as we will be with our trams.
Oldham Council are focused on bring the trams into the town centre, depite the main use of the Oldham Loop being to get people in and out of Manchester.
If an increase in fares for everyone who will use the tram replacement and a massive increase in journey times for commuter who travel beyond Oldham is a 21st century "improvement" I'd rather have a 20th century railway.
Celsuc_civis please tell me how often you shop in oldham town centre because Dixons have noy been in oldham town centre for a long time or has it open and i have just not seen it ill clean my glasses before i go to town on friday and look for it
Celsus_civis, AJH, and any other in favour of the metrolink, I wonder how many of you have ever used this thing? I have and can tell you it's appalling, so id the management who don't care. 5000 complaints in two months this year, you think that's an improvement? I bet the old train service didn't get that many in 100 years!
Just wait until a tram breaks down on Union Street, then you might just realise, but I expect you'll be shopping in Altrincham.
The point the rosy spectacled optimists are missing is that when the poorly thought out scheme starts people won't be using it to visit the sad remnants of our town centre. Instead they will do exactly the opposite & use it to take advantage of better facilities in neighbouring towns. Nothing could possibly make Peter St attractive. The shopping corpse is where it leads. Spindles is the problem. It has effectively cut the town centre in two, destroying any cohesive planning for improvement.
Like most major projects in the town over the last thirty or forty years no thought is given to the overall picture. No-one cares what the finished product will look like or even if it will function at all. Successive councils, mostly Lab, have only been intent on furthering their own interests. Buildings are in the wrong place or poorly sited, i.e. Civic Centre, Sports Centre, Multi-storey car park, Spindles, Sainsbury's, Art gallery...
Usual moaning and groaning and misinformation. The idea of Metrolink is not just to replace the fromer rail line with restrictive times and frequencies to and From Manchester but to increase ridership (as has happen on the Bury line) to key areas such as the new Central Park and Kingsway. There is a small inrease in journey tiem but this is more than made up by a frequency on 6 minutes. Oh the cost from Bury to Victoria £5 peak and takes 20 mins.Oldham Loop needed over £7 million/year to run.
Plenty of reasons for people to come into Oldham, maybe not from Bury but certainly from Rochdale, the 6th form, college and University centre - attended by mainy people who can not drive or own a car and many from outside the borough.
Bury and Salford Quays have had major development since Metrolink was developed to these so why should this not happen in Oldham?
Oh and I've used Metrolink plenty of times - the Pacers used on the Oldham Loop were far worse, especially between Shaw & Derker.
i'll be sat (note sat- not stood up) on a queit pollution free and fast tram, that has CCTV and security. It will take a little longer, but i'll be able to travel right from and to my destination with out changing or walking for miles in the rain or through mugger filled subways. I'll be able to get to and from mancheter at leisure using upto 10 trams an hour at rush hour (unlike 4 battered trains previouly). it will cost a bit more (maybe)- well worth it. Formerly paid peanuts and got monkey's
Tell It: Many(?)folk coming into Oldham to attend school will not do much to regenerate the town centre and if this is the purpose of Metrolink I can think of better ways of spending millions. Bury was doing OK well before Metrolink arrived and as for Salford Quays, what has been imaginatively created there is a lively, vibrant well integrated, mix of residential, leisure and business sectors, which is well served by it's Metrolink. Give us a list of comparable features in Oldham!
As many people will tell you on the Bury line, the frequency might be every 6 minutes, but you have to let 1 or 2 tram come and go before you can get on one that has room. This is also my experince when using the tram in Manchester City Centre.
Misinformation is "a small increase in journey time". It was 3 minute between Mumps and Werneth 10 or 15 via town centre? And even longer when it snows and we have grid lock again. It wont' be 18 minute from Shaw to Manchester.
I don't know why you pick Shaw to Derker as bad. Derker had one of the few sections of continuously welded rail on the Loop.
The Oldham Loop has been blighted by Metrolinks shaddow for mnearly 20 years. Railtrack and Network rail only did the minimum possible for health & safety as there was no point in them investing in the longer term future of the Loop as it would be handed over to Metrolink.
They would never see a return on their investment.
Comparisons with the journey time from Bury are not logical. The Bury line used its original stations and original route.
The Oldham Loop will be diverted from Werneth to trail through the town centre.
No matter what you say, any one who used the rail service to commute to Manchester from beyond Werneth will have a poorer service in terms of journey time, and at Metrolinks own admission, (at Shaw Library) fares will be higher than the previous train service.
Metrolink now cannot cope with passenger numbers on certain sections of its system at peak times. It currently has no way of expanding its capacity. If the Altringham line had remained as a railway there would have been more scope for capacity increase.
Rail passenger from Chester to Manchester via Knutsford now have a worse service/longer journey due to the diversion via Stockport to avoid Metrolink from Altringham.
Remember the 4000 complaints this winter when Metrolinks service fell apart?
The Bury section is getting new trams to act to double the units in peak opperation - because it is successful!
Replacing the tack and keepinging heavy rail could have been done but woyuld not have increase frequencies or extend the hours operated - The trams cost less to opperate as they are more effiecnt than DMUs and before you say the Oldham loop could be electrified the Manchester - Liverpool line has still not been electrified and stil might be delay by the this so called geoverment.
Can JMTS and Celsius Civis actually do anything more than spend and pretend?
What will Metrolink bring to Oldham? The answer is nothing.
"Can JMTS and Celsius Civis actually do anything more than spend and pretend?
"
Except a service that runs every 6 min peak and starts and finishes later, a service that is easier for peple with wheel chaairs and oush chairs (mobility scooters are not allowed on trains, a system that has proven increased numbers, a system that doesn't require £7m pa from GMPTE, has seen development and investmnet where has run, a service that stops at new buisness parks (central kingsway).
It takes a futher 8 min from Vic to Pic - 3 stops through a large section of pedestrian area so it is not going to take "Twice as long" as is often thrown around on here. Cost twice as much? Again I don't think so - there may be an face increase, the loop line fares were subserdised by GMPTE - money that can now go back into the system. Too many people lookk back on the trains with rose coloured specs - I often had trains delayed or cancelled - more of an issue if the next tain is 1 hour !
People may have forgotton that there has been 10 years of the on off of the trams going down Union street - who can blame developers holding on?
A large amount of the development in the Quays and Bury has been post Metrolink - Media city has seen its own stop and a doubling of the service - part of the cost of this has come directly from the NWDA and Salford City Council.
IF Metrolink wasn't running to the Quays I doubt Media city would have been developed.
"I will be sat down not stood up". Have you seen the trams from Bury to Manchester? You'll have less chance of a seat than the train.
Media City was created for the BBC to cut costs by moving out of London. It's not there soley because of Metrolink. There are far bigger reason for it to move the Salford.
If you want delays and cancelations wait till next winter. If the tams can't cope with winter weather in Manchester they'll never get to Oldham. Remeber the 4000 complaints about Metrolink?
There was nothing to stop the trains running earlier or later. Yes there was a subsidy, and you'll be paying for its replacement with higher tram fares and in some case car parking charges.
The tram may take cars off the road but it will also put some back. It has no chance of removing any lorries from our roads. A tram track cannot be used for freight.
There may have been non at the moment but more freight is leaving the roads for the rails. Kingsway business park & the warehouses in Shaw & Royton can now never be rail served.
Just more lorries battering the roads at all hour, waking people up, and causing conjestion.
Metrolink is no answer to this issue.
Have Your Say
How about getting rid of all those unnecessary take aways on Yorkshire Street as well. Its gonna take alot more that Bins and Tress to sort that place out!
By Mainstander @ 27/07/2010 12:11:15