To Infinity and Beyond .....

..... or so it seems in this image.

The Cross City Bus from Leigh to Manchester opens on Sunday, under the Vantage brand, and includes a Guided Busway section from Leigh to the East Lancashire Road. It follows the route of a railway line closed by Dr Beeching in the 1960's. There will be 8 buses an hour from 4.30 am till after midnight apparently.

Developed by Transport for Greater Manchester the guided section will be the third one in the country, after the very successful ones in Cambridge and Dunstable. Alongside it is another surface for cyclists, walkers and horse riders.

The construction has involved a lot of controversy, as there has been a lot of disruption to traffic movements (as with the other major transport schemes under construction elsewhere in Greater Manchester). The UK has not invested in public transport over the decades, so trying to retrofit something like this in was never going to be easy. 

I hope it succeeds. For people living nearby it will offer quick and regular access to the City Centre, and soon the university and hospitals around Oxford Road. Time will tell ! 

I'm certainly going to cycle the route, it looks a great off road experience. And a weird one with purple double decker buses whizzing by regularly.