U-turn for Much Needed Manchester Transport Updates

In 2008 over 800,000 people in Greater Manchester voted against the Proposed Congestion Charge. I can recall endless online debates that at times got quite aggressive, over whether the congestion charge was a good or a bad thing. The only consistency from both sides of the argument was that transport across Greater Manchester needed a massive overhaul. Over crowded, over priced and at times not very convenient meant that driving into Manchester for many is an obvious and easy choice over the alternative of trains, trams & buses.
One of the 'promises' from the For Campaign was that the Congestion Charge would allow a massive fund to improve transport, however, we (Greater Manchester residents & voters) were firmly warned that if the charge did not go ahead, there would be absolutely no funding to pay for transport upgrades!


Very interesting then, that this week a leaflet dropped through the doors of many a resident, stating that (despite no congestion charge) that GMPTE are planning to (finally!) introduce bus services across the City Centre, as part of a larger programme to deliver £1.5 billion of transport improvements over the coming years. Currently people living in the of North of the city have to swap not only buses, but bus companies to travel south of Piccadilly Gardens resulting in having to buy multiple travel tickets, from what I have read in the distributed leaflets, this will be a thing of the past. I'm sure it's too much to expect a similar system to London, where everyone pays a flat fee per journey/time period.

Warehouse Project 2009

Last night we went to the Warehouse Project underneath Piccadilly train station. After spending almost 50 minutes trying to find the venue (GPS locator sending us in the wrong direction, ending up behind piccadilly, unable to cut through!), we eventually arrived a little after half 10. After seeing promotional pictures and the "strictly no entry after 11.30pm" message on tickets, we expected to be queuing for a quite a while, so it was a nice surprise to find on a handful of people waiting to be searched before entry. We went straight in to find the venue (a car park during the week) fairly empty, which gave us plenty of time to have a wander around and explore. Very cleverly laid out underneath the arches, there is a foyer with merchandise for sale & cloakroom, the main room, with a bar off that area, around the corner there is the second room, and a chill out lounge with cinema!


The cinema was showing Beetlejuice & The Bourne Identity along with another film I can't remember, there was no sound but that didn't seem to bother anyone as you wouldn't have been able to hear it over the sounds from the rest of the club, there was a popcorn seller, and you could get your photo taken in the Smirnoff Cinema Seats - for this you are rewarded with 3D glasses and a visor! Along with having your photo uploaded to Facebook

The drink prices were pretty reasonable for a club, £3 to £3.50 for a can of beer (tiger, kronenbourg, red stripe etc), to £3.30 for a spirit & mixer, the bars were never too busy, we managed to get served within a couple of minutes each time we went to any of the various bars. The toilets (portaloos) were plentiful and the queues were not too bad, although they ran out of loo roll before midnight, which isn't great when you consider the club is open until 5am.

On to the music - Rich Reason was the warm up dj for the main room, he was ok, nothing particularly stood out, but it wasn't offensive to the ears either, by the time BeardyMan came on at 11pm, the previously empty room was packed out, he started with Shimmy Shimmy Ya and the crowd went crazy, it was a real party atmosphere! If you haven't seen beardyman before it's worth checking him out on Youtube.
After that we chilled out in the cinema room for a while, waiting for DJ Krush to come on at 1am. We ended up queuing to get into the relatively small second room to see DJ Krush, because he's that popular - luckily the room emptied out as most people apparently wanted to go see the radio 1 dj who's name escapes me. We didn't see all of Krush's set, but it was very Shadow-eque, it was a shame that the accompanying visuals displayed on the wall behind the decks weren't very bright, but over all a good night.
We didn't manage to see Friction or Roni Size as these were on way after out bedtime!
We headed out into the night around 1.30am, being old & tired having had a really good night out, will definitely be looking forward to more similar events.