Manchester Metrolink’s ‘Second City Crossing’ (2CC) has been named as Britain’s Construction and Engineering Project of the Year at the National Transport Awards.
A second award was won by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) for improvements to bus services for its ‘Bus Priority Package’.
More than 40m passenger journeys are made a year on the tram while £122m was forked out to improve Manchester buses.
“The National Transport Awards are effectively the Oscars of the transport industry, so to see two of our schemes scoop top prize is absolutely fantastic,” said Councillor Andrew Fender, Chair of the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee.
“Both are marvellous projects that have transformed the public transport landscape across the city region.”
2CC is the £165m extension of Metrolink which has seen the tram network grow to three times its original size, offering new links and more frequent trams through Manchester city centre.
Metrolink – aiming to improve service reliability and greater operational flexibility – says its customers are set to be hit by an average 5.93% increase in fares from January 2018.
Special event tickets will also cost £1 more from the New Year.
The award for improvements to bus services came in recognition of the transformation of Manchester’s Oxford Road corridor and first guided busway project to be created in the North West.
The Bus Priority Package has created new bus links through Manchester city centre across 25 miles of the network, from Leigh and Salford in the west and Middleton in the north.
The creation of the guided busway between Leigh and Ellenbrook has seen more than three million journeys made since April last year.
Bus priority measures along the East Lancs Road, cross-city bus links and a transformed Oxford Road have helped to improve bus services in the Greater Manchester area.
For information on public transport across Greater Manchester visit www.tfgm.com, call 0161 244 1000 (7am-8pm, Monday to Friday, and 8am-8pm at weekends and bank holidays) or follow @OfficialTfGM on Twitter.
