Manchester absolutely embarrasses us in terms of public transport.
Trams we should have kept, but having lived in work for Manchester for a bit
No, it's a shithole - don't envy it . I wish Liverpool had a more socialist handle on transport (happy for our Merseyrail guys to strike) but take it from me , Manchester trams are frequent and even reliable but they're still by and large bloody awful, crammed, violent, stuffed with idiots, nothing to envy
Yet another Manchester idea that "on paper - sound"
Liverpool trams way back before I existed, now that was a sad loss - would love them back, but here's the key bit - run with competence and consideration
Copy Manchester? No thank you. If we ever do this again, let's do our own way.
I'd take a monorail, anythin - one of the best cities in the world and it feels transport-wise like, if anything, a regression
Go to Portugal and it's vaguely third-world but the underground stations have water flooding out in the morning to clean the platform - yet again, us, you, we, are gettin fucked over
So I don't envy Manchester, but I do envy other cities and places - which is very sad.