Second City Crossing is on track to open

EXCHANGE Square Metrolink stop

MANCHESTER Metrolink's new Second City Crossing line is on track to open to passengers later this month, Transport for Greater Manchester have announced.

Subject to final testing and commissioning, the first passenger services will run on the new line between Victoria and St Peter's Square on February 26.

This city crossing runs from a new stop at St Peter's Square along Cross Street to stops at Exchange Square and Victoria, and will allow more trams to run through the city centre and across the 93-stop network. This means passengers travelling from Shaw and Crompton via Oldham will be able to travel between Victoria and East Didsbury every six minutes, rather than the current 12 minute service.

The Second City Crossing is the final piece in Metrolink's £1.5bn 'big bang' expansion programme - which has seen extensions to MediaCityUK, East Didsbury, Rochdale via Oldham, Ashton and Manchester Airport. Construction work on the new city crossing finished late last year and has been followed by a rigorous testing and commissioning process, including driver training. The Deansgate-Castlefield and Victoria stops have also been upgraded.

The first phase of the Second City Crossing opened from Victoria through to a new stop at Exchange Square in December 2015. Fast-tracked thanks to the European Regional Development Fund, this section of the new line allowed a six-minute daytime service to run between Shaw and Crompton, Oldham and Exchange Square from Monday to Saturdays.

When the new line opens, Manchester Airport services will run to the city centre Deansgate-Castlefield stop and, later this year, will continue to Victoria. Services that currently terminate at Deansgate-Castlefield and Exchange Square will continue across the city centre to Shaw and Crompton and East Didsbury.

The new line will also offer new links, improved reliability and greater operational flexibility. It will also support the Metrolink network's future growth by allowing for increased services to run on some lines as demand to travel grows.

Peter Cushing, Transport for Greater Manchester's Metrolink director, said: "The return of passenger trams to this area of the city will be a historic day."