Major UK city announces incredible plan for new underground transport system

A new underground rail and tram system could be coming to one of the UK's biggest cities, under new plans announced by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. Speaking at the launch of the region's new 10-year strategy, Mr Burnham confirmed that plans to tunnel underneath Manchester city centre will now be drawn up as part of efforts to improve transport in the region.

"We are going underground," he told the audience. "We are building the Bee Network on the surface. If we achieve our economic ambitions, we will be struggling to manage [with just that]." He added: "I am going to ask TfGM to look at options for underground services. We will work with the government to look at financing it."

The plans for underground transport were first suggested last year by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), as part of a draft rapid transit strategy, Manchester Evening News reported.

But the document didn't include a clear route map or timetable, other than suggesting a long-term vision aiming for the middle of the century.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service after the event, Mr Burnham made it clear he wants real progress to begin now.

He said the scheme would likely begin with a new underground station at Manchester Piccadilly, which is already being considered in proposals for a future railway line between Liverpool and Manchester.

"We will need infrastructure on a bigger scale to cope," he said. "It's not a throwaway line. I am deadly serious."

"I want TfGM to start preparing the original, first concept for what an underground for Manchester might look like.

"I'm going to open the earliest conversation with the government on what the funding mechanism will look like."

It's not the first time Manchester has looked at going underground. A plan for a 'Picc-Vic' tunnel linking Piccadilly and Victoria stations was drawn up in the 1970s but later scrapped.

"It's not a completely new topic," Mr Burnham said. "With Piccadilly, if it plays the way we hope with the digital campus, Sister, Mayfield, all of it will require a very significant international scale transport system.

"I think from the Piccadilly underground, we build off that a system that goes east-west and north-south."

There is currently no confirmed timeline for the project, but Mr Burnham said he hopes to have "detailed" plans that are "worked out what it will cost" by 2030.