In September 2016, in these pages, I asked a hugely important question: is it time to rethink the Manchester Metrolink map?

Back then, the official map was entirely in grey, making it both horribly ugly and remarkably difficult to follow. I argued that a new version, with actual colours, would be bother prettier and more useful.

Click to expand. Image: TfGM.

Six months later, I breathlessly reported that someone out there in the wilds of the internet had been smart enough to take my advice – and in the process, had made the map “much, much better”.

Click to expand. Image: Project Mapping.

And now, a mere 16 months after my initial thundering, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has finally redesigned its map – and it, too, has made it much, much better. Look upon my works, ye mighty:

Click to expand. Image: TfGM.

This is, to be fair, not quite the redesign I’d suggested. That would have seen routes colour-coded by the path they took through the city centre, mostly out of concern that showing them individually would have made the Cornbrook-St Peter’s Square section about eight lines thick.

As it turns out, that’s less of a problem than I’d feared – the service pattern has been simplified somewhat since the Second City Crossing via Exchange Square opened, which helps.

The new map instead gives each route its own colour – and it is significantly better looking. What’s more, a coloured-route map will be vastly easier to follow than one where all routes are in the same, dull grey, for almost everyone. The only exception I can think of is those who are colour-blind, but I can’t, off the top of my head, think why the new map would be any harder for them to read. 

My only slight objection is the choice of colours. Including two yellows and two greens on the map before colouring a line red makes it feel oddly unbalanced. My first thought was that perhaps the designer simply hates Manchester United, but on reflection this might also be an attempt to ensure usability for those colour-blind passengers I mentioned a mere one paragraph earlier.

There are other changes. The new map has replaced the letters labelling the routes on the last version of the map with numbers. It’s also tinkered with some of the routes slightly. Here, best I can tell, are the changes:

  • Route A – Altrincham to Bury – now route 1, unchanged
  • Route B – Altrincham to Etihad Campus – now route 2, Altrincham-Piccadilly
  • Route C – Bury to Piccadilly – now route 4, unchanged
  • Route D – MediaCityUK to Piccadilly – now route 7, MediaCity-UK-Etihad Campus
  • Route E – Eccles to Ashton-under-Lyme – now route 3, unchanged.
  • Route F – Manchester Airport to Deansgate-Castlefield – now route 6, extended across the city centre to Victoria via Shudehill
  • Route G – East Didsbury to Rochdale Town Centre – now route 5, unchanged
  • Route H – East Disbury to Shaw & Crompton – missing in action; but since this was a truncated version of route G, one assumes it’s effectively been subsumed into route 5.

So, to sum up: routes 2 & 7 have swapped eastern termini; route 6 has extended northwards to Victoria; and H has disappeared altogether.

I think that’s everything.

You see, this is what happens when people write in to complain I write too much about the tube map: lengthy, nerdy commentary about slight changes to the Manchester Metrolink map. Are you happy now, “not everyone lives in London” brigade? Are you happy?

Jonn Elledge is the editor of CityMetric. He is on Twitter as @jonnelledge and on Facebook as JonnElledgeWrites. 

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