Infra:MANC, Transport Cubed at Mcr Histories Festival

I have given a pop art treatment to my photo of the Futuroute, which is at one of the many fascinating exhiibitions on for the Manchester Histories Festival. Infra:MANC is a small exhibition at the Cube Gallery which revisits some of the post World War II infrastructure of Manchester projects. Some came to fruition and some inevitably didn't.

The Futuroute was a machine made to market the Picc-Vic. This was a regional transport system including a tunnel linking Piccadilly to Victoria. Looking to me like a 1970s pub jukebox, you press the name of the stations you wish to travel between and the best rail route lights up. It covered Lancashire (which Manchester itself was part of until 1974) and Cheshire.

This 1960s scheme for an underground railway in Manchester was approved by the 1972 national government, yet didn't happen (although it did lead to the Metrolink tram network some 20 years later). 

It was one of a few projects that didn't get off the ground, quite literally for some. Blueprints and artists' impressions I was salivating over were a 1950's network of city centre helicopter landing pads and moving pavements.

See also the Signs, Signs blog.