Friends want bikes on all trams

Cycle-lovers are calling on transport bosses to honour their pledge to allow bikes on trams as it prepares to build the Metrolink extension to Oldham.

The Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority will meet today to consider the plans.

And Manchester Friends of the Earth campaign Love Your Bike has written to members asking them to honour a pledge made in 2002 that bikes would be allowed on all non-peak time trams.

The campaign believes that allowing bicycles to travel on off-peak trams will be an effective way to reduce C02 emissions and help deliver a integrated transport service for Greater Manchester.

The Love Your Bike campaigners estimate that approximately 90 per cent of people in Greater Manchester will be within a 2.5 mile cycle ride of a tram station when the new Metrolink services are completed.

Graeme Sherriff, Manchester Friends of the Earth’s Transport Campaign Co-ordinator, said: “ The Love Your Bike campaign calls on the GMPTA to integrate bicycles into Metrolink.”