Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund

The Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund was a failed bid by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) and Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) to secure £1.5 billion from the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF), a major public transport funding mechanism in England, for the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. There would have been an additional £1.2 billion borrowed and paid back through a mixture of public transport revenues and weekday, peak-time only Greater Manchester congestion charge.

If approved, the funds would have been spent on modernising Greater Manchester's transport network, with large-scale extensions of the Manchester Metrolink system, as well as increased bus and rail services, investment in existing stations and improvements to cycling and road networks. Other changes would have been the introduction of the Readycard, an Integrated Transport Smartcard similar to the Oyster card used in Greater London.

AGMA decided to hold a referendum in Greater Manchester so that its electorate could express their approval or rejection of the proposals. The referendum, a postal vote, began in late November and closed on 11 December 2008. The results were announced on 12 December, showing that the majority of voters in all ten boroughs rejected the proposals.^[1]