There are three tunnels under the River Mersey: one railway tunnel, the Mersey Railway Tunnel, and two road tunnels, Queensway Tunnel and Kingsway Tunnel. There is also the Mersey Ferry, made famous by the song Ferry Cross the Mersey by Gerry and the Pacemakers. In fact the song is now played on the ferryboats themselves every time they prepare to dock at Liverpool.

In 2001, Liverpool Airport, situated near Speke in the south of the city, was renamed Liverpool John Lennon Airport, in honour of the late Beatle John Lennon. The airport’s logo consists of a sketch that Lennon had drawn of himself, and the words “Above us only sky”, lyrics from his song Imagine. The airport was the starting point for many Beatles tours in the sixties, and image of the boys boarding planes there were seen throughout the world. In 2002 716,000 passengers used the Port of Liverpool, with the Isle of Man and Ireland being the two most important passenger routes.

Liverpool is served by the Merseyrail urban rail network. The sections in the city centre are mostly underground. It has two lines: the Northern Line, which runs to Southport, Ormskirk, Kirkby and Hunts Cross, and the Wirral Line, which runs through the Mersey Railway Tunnel and has branches to West Kirby, New Brighton, Ellesmere Port and Chester. The city’s main railway station for longer-distance services is Lime Street station. Trains from Liverpool operate to destinations including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Preston, Leeds, Scarborough, Sheffield, Nottingham and Norwich.

Historically, Liverpool had an extensive tram network; however, this was dismantled in the 1950s. From 1893 to 1956, the Liverpool docks were served by the Liverpool Overhead Railway. A number of other railway lines, such as the Canada Dock Branch from Edge Hill to Kirkdale, no longer see passenger services, or have been removed completely, such as the North Liverpool Extension Line.

In 2001 a plan to build new a light rail system, Merseytram, was developed, although after central Government refused to underwrite the project, it was cancelled in November 2005 due to spiralling costs.