A YEAR after the Commonwealth Games and what do we have left from the triumph? A new stadium for Manchester City, a new identity for east Manchester, a lot of congratulations -and a London Olympic bid.

But one of the major success stories has been left wondering: "What is in it for us?"

Public transport was riding high a year ago. Barely a hack turned up at the final press conference for the Games - and that sent the message to Chris Mulligan, the man in charge, that he had done his job.

At the start of the Games, media from across the world had been there in force, expecting an Atlanta Olympics-style catastrophe.

Even locally, once it was admitted that the new Metrolink extension would not be built to reach the stadium in time, there were predictions that the planned bus-based strategy would fall on it's face.

It didn't - and the achievement of getting athletes and fans to a world sports event by public transport has rightly been hailed the world over.

But when asked what legacy the Games has produced, transport chiefs and operators are forced to resort to talking about new ways of working together rather than new lines, roads, and stations.

Bleak

And Mr Mulligan, director general of Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority, recently stunned into silence a Chamber of Commerce meeting in the city with his bleak view of the prospects for the region's railways.

For the man charged with winning new passengers to the railways has dashed hopes of more trains and better services in Greater Manchester.

The area has one of the largest but least used rail networks in England - 16m train passengers a year are dwarfed by the 20m who travel on the still-infant Metrolink tram system.

And local transport planners want to quadruple the number of passengers over the next decade to ease pressure on our jammed roads.

That, they say, will require major investment at congestion points close to the city centre. But Strategic Rail Authority chairman Richard Bowker has told Euro-MP Chris Davies that hopes of increasing rail capacity fail to make financial sense.

Hopes were raised two years ago when the SRA agreed that lack of capacity was preventing growth in rail use across Greater Manchester - only to be dashed last year when the SRA suddenly lost more than £300m from its budget and announced that it would focus investment on inter city and the south-east commuter services.

Now, the SRA boss has told Mr Davies in the European Parliament in Brussels that expansion "doesn't make sense, even if you triple passenger numbers".

First North Western services were being subsidised to the tune of 23.5p per kilometre travelled, compared to a subsidy of just 1p for London commuters, he told the MEP.

"The Greater Manchester plans simply wouldn't generate a big enough increase in passenger volumes to warrant the expenditure," he added.

Now, a new pressure group of business and political leaders from throughout the north west has been set up to lobby for extra funds.

Mr Mulligan told them at their first meeting in Manchester last week that the approaches to Piccadilly are so congested that without major new schemes to increase capacity and avoid conflicts, not only is there is no prospect of new services but the growing congestion on the railways will lead to even more traffic jams on the roads - and an eventual FALL in the number of rail passengers.

Improvements

Greater Manchester's rail routes will simply be full up within a decade if nothing is done, says Mr Mulligan. But improvements do not come cheap.

What is needed is either a rail flyover at Ardwick at £140m or a new "Ordsall curve" and a flyover to get trains from the west into Piccadilly via Victoria costing £130m.

Either scheme would need extra platforms at Piccadilly for £90m and possibly the widening of the Piccadilly/ Deansgate viaduct costing £300m.

An extra platform at Salford Crescent is needed at £15m if there are to be any extra services from the north west of Manchester and £15m worth of platform improvements would be needed at Salford Central to allow trains from Liverpool to stop there.

Manchester Airport needs a third platform and two extra tracks between Piccadilly and Slade Lane which would cost £110m. A new western link would come in at £190m and an eastern link at £80m.

Almost a billion pounds may sound a lot to ask from a government which is already giving Manchester almost as much as that for Metrolink extensions.

But Mr Mulligan says: "When you compare it to Crossrail, the scheme to get trains across London for £20bn, it looks very reasonable. The trouble is that getting these schemes off the ground takes such a long time and if we are not careful, we will already have reached saturation point before any of them are finished.

"If you are not careful, predictions of congestion can be self fulfilling and you go into a spiral of decline. We need to get on with it because our economy depends on it."

All eyes at the SRA are on Gordon Brown's "spending review" next year and hopes of convincing the Chancellor to allocate more money to schemes like Manchester's.

Rail Regulator Tom Winsor set a few hearts fluttering last week when he suggested the £10bn West Coast Main Line upgrade could be deferred by up to a year in order to save as much as £1bn. He also called on Network Rail - Railtrack's successor company - to slash billions of pounds from its "exploding" costs before he announces in December just how much the company can charge rail operators for using the network. The good news for the north west, however, was SRA chairman Bowker's reaction to that idea. "There will be no delay," he told the M.E.N. "It is already value for money."

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