My colleague Councillor Tim Pickstone asked a question at Bury’s recent Full Council about the closure of Victoria Metrolink station during 2014:

The Good News:
Victoria Station is getting a massive investment of £44 million. A few years ago Victoria was rated as the WORST station in the whole of Britain, so it is very much overdue for investment. The £44 million is largely Government money (Transport for Greater Manchester are making a contribution to the roof) and part of the Government’s commitment in investing in infrastructure.

The Government has also given the go-ahead for the second city crossing of Metrolink (straight down Cross Street towards the Town Hall and St Peter’s Square. We are a few years off this, but work is starting on the necessary junctions at the same time as the work at Victoria.

The Bad News:
Victoria Metrolink station needs to close for approximately nine months to allow this work to take place (the work on Victoria and the work to enable the 2nd city crossing are taking place at the same time). As we understand it some trams will terminate at Abraham Moss, but double trams will continue through Victoria and stop at Shudehill.

We asked a question about whether there will be additional ticket machines provided at Shudehill during the closure. Despite being a busy city centre stop, Shudehill only has one ticket machine on each platform, which you can imagine will get pretty busy at peak times dealing with everyone who has been diverted from Victoria.

The answer we were given was:
“Additional shelters will be provided at Shudehill Metrolink Station, as well as a larger waiting area on the Victoria- bound side of the tracks at Shudehill.

Given the forthcoming roll out of smart ticketing on Metrolink, a business case cannot be made for additional expenditure of ticket machines and the services needed to support them. Therefore, Shudehill and Victoria will have additional, full-time Passenger Service Representative (PSR) presence during this disruption. PSRs at Shudehill will be equipped with handheld ticket machines in order to manage queues and minimise waiting times for customers. The use of PSRs will also bring the benefit that they can assist customers with directions and queries, and will be able to organise transfers between the stations for those with mobility impairments, free of charge”.

So the short answer is ‘no more ticket machines’.
I’m obviously not an expert but this seems like a strange decision for nine months of dealing with ALL of Manchester Victoria’s Metrolink passengers. We did ask Bury’s rep on the Transport for Greater Manchester Committee to take back this as an obvious concern which she promised to do.

More information on Victoria Station and the £44 million investment here.

 

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