The Manchester TIF referendum: another vote I didn't win

At around midday today we got the results in from the referendum on Manchester's TIF (Transport Innovation Fund) bid. I got the news first from Twitter, of course, but it then trickled up onto the BBC News website: Voters reject congestion charge.

It's a disappointment for me, as a new Manchester city centre resident. I don't have a car, and use Manchester's trams, trains and buses a fair bit, so the planned improvements - funded in part by a weekday peak time only congestion charge - would have benefited me a lot. Which is why I voted YES in the postal ballot.

Unfortunately, my YES vote was outnumbered by the NO votes by almost 4 to 1. What's more, the NO vote won by a sizeable majority in every single one of the 10 Manchester local authority regions.

It's pretty depressing stuff, particularly as I left London just after having voted for Ken Livingstone in the London mayoral election, who also didn't win.

Ah well. At least some of the tram improvements are happening anyway, as the following diagram shows (confirmed extensions are in solid red, the ones in dashed red were going to be funded by the TIF money, and the dashed blue line is a distant-future Stockport extension pipe dream):

There were also plans to introduce a integrated smart ticketing system (similar to the Oyster card in London). Which might sound like a gimmick, but is actually pretty critical to improving usage of public transport - digging around for change for the tram is a pain, and cashless bus operation speeds up journey times. Without the TIF money this plans is on ice, although I'd be surprised if it didn't resurface at some point in the future.

For now, the city will have to respect the NO voters, ditch the congestion charging plans, and fall back upon a much slower rate of improvement in the public transport infrastructure.