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Moving Manchester on Mixcloud
Today’s edition of Making Manchester was broadcast by ALL FM 96.9 as scheduled, and an extended cut of the programme is now on Mixcloud.
Moving Manchester: Planes, trams and smart motorways tells the stories of Manchester’s biggest current transport infrastructure projects: Manchester Airport’s expansion (based on an interview with MAG’s Director of Planning John Twigg), Manchester Smart Motorways (based on an interview with MSM’s Project Director Dave Emery) and Metrolink’s expansion (based on interviews with Cllr Andrew Fender of Manchester City Council and Peter Cushing, Transport for Greater Manchester’s Metrolink Director).
Next week’s Making Manchester will be the first of a two-part programme called Theatres of Dreams: The civil engineering behind a great sporting city.
The Metrolink story
Ahead of our next programme Moving Manchester: Trams, planes and smart motorways, here’s a short video featuring clips from the interviews in the programme.
Cllr Andrew Fender of Manchester City Council was involved with Metrolink from its inception in the 1980s, and recounts for us the saga of transforming Metrolink from a drawing-board idea to being the UK’s biggest tram network.
Peter Cushing, Transport for Greater Manchester’s Metrolink Director, tells us about some of the engineering challenges faced in putting the system’s current seven lines and 93 stops into place over a twenty-year period.
The short video gives a flavour of the longer story in the ALL FM radio programme.
Thanks to Manchester String Quartet and Glucose Records for their kind permission to use their “Happy” in this video and others in the series.
And in the meantime…
Following a break, Making Manchester is scheduled to resume in the summer. The next programme – Moving Manchester: Planes, trams and smart motorways – will look at the ongoing development of Manchester Airport and the Airport City project; the continuing expansion of Metrolink, which now serves seven of Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs; and the Manchester Smart Motorways project.
In the meantime the Institution of Civil Engineers has today published this new video – screened for the first time last night at the ICE North West Annual Awards dinner in Carlisle – which has a quick look at some of the projects featured in the Making Manchester series, as well as others from around North West England.
The video’s called Civil engineering in North West England: Some of the jewels in the crown. Those jewels include Manchester Victoria Station’s £44m redevelopment, which at last night’s ICE Awards swept away the coveted Large Project Award.
The video also has a brief look at the Mersey Gateway Bridge, mentioned in The seaport 40 miles from the sea, and the Metrolink and Manchester Smart Motorways projects which will feature in the next Making Manchester programme.
Enjoy the video, and watch this space for the date of Making Manchester‘s return.
Making Manchester 