M74 Extension goes ahead

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Postby Apollo » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:37 am

That section's akin to the Marie Celeste whenever I've been on it since the M77 opened. Due in no small part, I suspect, to the concious effort needed to come off the M77/M8 rollercoaster track, and navigate manually once on the A roads.

I'd also have to admitting to preferring the Eaglesham moor road though, and avoid the M8 altogether if it's anywhere near rush hour :roll:
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Postby lordsleek » Fri Mar 25, 2005 6:07 am

Captain Brittles wrote: I bought my first car when I was 35


Well you did have to wait till they invented it :twisted:

Seriously though I have no choice about transport as I work in the middle of nowhere but I still have to pay the same prices as the urban motorist.
At one time I could have taken a train from the bottom of the hill near my house to within a couple of miles. But that was gone even b4 the bastard Beeching :x
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Postby Closet Classicist » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:11 pm

Captain Brittles wrote:

Closet Classicist wrote:
My bone of contention is how it severs the southside from the city centre..............................................................It will act a psychological barrier as if the Clyde wasn't a big enough one already.


Care to expand on the latter part of your statement ?



Well captain not being a native Glaswegian one of the things that has struck me about this city is how divided it is along geographic lines. People from the north of Glasgow seem to regard the southside as a foreign country hence snide remarks from westendies about getting your passport stamped when you cross the Clyde. I'm sure this works vice versa. The fact is that the 60's urban clearances of Laurieston Gorbals, Hutchesontown, Kinning Park et al have underscored this by making a whole swath of the southside an urban no mans land for several decades. The constant uncertainty created by the continual stalling of the M74 link has not helped matters. There was a chance in the early to mid 90's that we could return to the kind of traditional urbanism that John Carrick and his ilk established when in mid Victorian times they laid out the likes of Queens Park and Victoria Road / Eglinton Street as a tenement lined boulevard linking the city centre to it. I still think that kind of urbanism will return (if you have seen the new masterplan for Laurieston it is evidently motivated by this) but elevated motorway networks are anathema to it and I believe that where the M74 crosses Eglinton toll this 6 lane elevated road will act as an enormous barrier. The environmental statement for the road backs this up. I would also site as evidence of this both the way Great Western Road was physically severed from the city centre in the early 70's and how the Clydeside expressway cuts Finneston in two. The area under the motorway is permanently blighted and acts as a barrier. I accept the need for a link just not the form it is taking. When city's like Boston are burying their elevated expressway and others like Milwaukee are demolishing theirs and creating boulevards instead why are we still doing this? Haven't we learned anything form the mistakes of the 60's?
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Postby JamesMc » Fri Mar 25, 2005 12:18 pm

Currently a debate on Radio Scotland on this very subject if anyone wishes to chip in.
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Postby Apollo » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:02 pm

Interesting points and observations CC. It is indeed a shame that there seems to be an inability, or lack of will, to learn from the developments of the past.

I would offer a slight spin, on the result though, wondering if there is an element of 'chicken and egg' with respect to the apparent division.

Does the road itself cause the social division, or is it down to the territorial instincts of the comunities it bounds? People, communities, groups, gangs etc. all seem to be happy to adopt any geographic feature as 'their' boundary, be it a hill, river, stream, road or motorway.
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Postby Captain Brittles » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:25 pm

I agree with everything CC says and in a perfect world with sensible planners, councillors and other politicos' willing to try and achieve this - and with unlimited funds it could happen, however it won't - because most of the above named don't understand the word 'sensible' and funds are always limited (unless its to invade another country).

But, CC I really was more interested in your complaint that the Clyde was in the way ...................
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Postby Closet Classicist » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:25 pm

Yeah absloutely! It will mean the city will be further sub divided and fragmented and I just don't see how that is a good thing.

Also the economic figures need challenged. The figure of 20,000 jobs may well be the case but who is taking these jobs? Is it going to be people from the neighbourhoods the road sweeps past? From the experience of Pollok and the M77 I doubt it. In that instance it is arguable that East Renfrewshire and Ayrshire (by this I mean Kilmarnock, Ayr, Alloway, Prestwick and Troon) benefited because people from there were able to commute into Glasgow and take up the new jobs. But all the people in Pollok got was the environmental impact of having a motorway slice past their windows. Lovely!

On another note as I pointed out in my previous post the environmental impact assesement made clear that there would be a negative impact on amenity in Eglinton Toll. So to alleviate this they will have a sculpture and lighting programme to soften the impact of the elevated motorway on what remains of the townscape. Exactly the same thing was proposed for the M8 where it intersected with Great Western Road 30 + years ago with drawings of happy pensioners enjoying the lovely surroundings of the motorway underpass. Didn't exactly work then plus ca change!
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Postby Closet Classicist » Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:32 pm

Sorry Captain just caught sight of your post there. I don't think the Clyde is in the way! I think its an opportunity! It was just meant as a comment on how physical features such as rivers can act as boundaries and borders between parts of cities. Kind of like Apollo's point. Anyway the whole north south Glasgow thing isn't new and is hardly unique! There is a book 'Glasgow 1901' which was written at the time of the Great Exhibition as a kind of snapshot of the city. The people who wrote it make great play on the differences between westenders and southsiders in particular those from Pollokshields who were dismissed by the westendies as being both nouveau riche and having questionable taste.
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Postby Closet Classicist » Fri Mar 25, 2005 2:11 pm

jam74 site is worth having a browse through though they still haven't updated it to take account of yesterday's announcement. There is a pdf of their final statement to the public inquiry which is worth a read.

http://www.jam74.org/
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Postby Captain Brittles » Fri Mar 25, 2005 10:16 pm

Urban commandos never give up.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5036953.html

Of course they'll never win because as we in Cumbernauld (Baillieston end, thank you) know, even when the Executive are wrong and proved very wrong they'll just bulldose something through regardless of local people's concerns, fears and worries about pollution both noise and atmospheric.
Who cares if your children are breathing in the fumes of 10,000 vehicles per hours passing within 50m of the garden they're playing in on a sunny afternoon during the rush hour ? As long as its not a politco's children .....
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Postby Caltonboy » Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:05 pm

I think it's a much needed road and will ease congestion on london road, main st. rutherglen and even shettleston and tollcross roads.
let's face it, the land it will cover is all but accepted as derelict and has been so for years, the area of the old steelworks land it will cross has been wasteland for years and dalmarnock is best covered with concrete as soon as possible. ::):
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Postby Captain Brittles » Sat Mar 26, 2005 10:56 pm

Caltonboy wrote: and dalmarnock is best covered with concrete as soon as possible. ::):


Its completely south of the obstacle, sorry, the Clyde and I'm sure Dalmarnock will escape unscathed.
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Postby Grant » Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:22 pm

Caltonboy wrote: let's face it, the land it will cover is all but accepted as derelict and has been so for years, the area of the old steelworks land it will cross has been wasteland for years and dalmarnock is best covered with concrete as soon as possible. ::):


A few tennements in Oatlands may be gone, but I'm sure there's folk in the disturbance area of Rutherglen, Gorbals and Tradeston will disagree they live in a wasteland.

Apart from that.

Does anyone know if you can actually build motorway along there? Isn't it all old mineworks? Looks like there'll be another half a billion pounds of concrete poured into this budget.

Still, there's work needing generated now every pavement has sticky out bits at the corner and speed bumps.
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Postby escotregen » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:17 am

Martin I have just picked up on this thread again and noted your point about the M77 lessening the volume of traffic on the A77. I did say that the best you get are some temporary benefits on some of the existing nearby arterial routes. But the motorway soon generates new and additional car journeys, the motorway then gets more busy then congested. Meantime, as you rightly illustrated, there is anecdotal evidence of alternatives for motorists who get stuck on the congested motoways - they start using these local rat runs again. Hey Presto! your then back to congested local roads, only now you also have all the new additional car journeys. These journeys mostly, of course, have nothing to do with the local neighbourhood nor bring it any benefits, only costs.
I can provide you with further anecdotal evidence on this very route. One of my client organisations is based on the inner Southside. In the chatter before organisation team meetings, you can hear the long distance motorists swapping advice. They are discussing what earlier junctions to come off (or how to avoid) the M77. The most reccurrent comment is a 'knowing' remark like "well I'll tell you where's quieter now that the motorway has taken the traffic away"... Here we go! any bets for when the campaign will start to widen/extend the M77 approaching the Southside?
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Postby Strike Team » Mon Mar 28, 2005 3:09 pm

But the motorway soon generates new and additional car journeys, the motorway then gets more busy then congested


Roads themselves don't generate traffic. It is the desire and need of people to travel that generates demand for more and more journeys. We have more people working in the UK than ever before, which means more demand for travel to and from work. In the old days it was usually only the father/husband who worked, and many people stayed in the same job for years. This meant it was often viable to live within walking/cycling distance of one's workplace. Nowadays most households consist of several working people, for instance a working wife and husband, with a working son and daughter living with them. It is not viable for this type of household to live close to everyone in the house's workplace, hence the need for travel. In any case with less and less job security, even a single-worker household would have to move house regularly to live within walking distance of their workplace as the likes of David Begg seem to be advocating.

The other cause of increased journeys is greater afluence, as people get wealthier they can afford to travel more. Let's not forget that car journeys themselves are contributing enormously to economic activity and wealth creation. People travelling by car are going to/from work, where they create wealth, provide services and generate tax revenue. Many car travellers are going to the city centre shops, to the pub, on holiday, etc., where they will spend money and contribute towards keeping people in jobs, creating wealth, and paying more taxes in the process. Car use itself creates numerous jobs too in car manufaturing, retailing, servicing and petrol sales, not to mention an absolute torrent of tax income flowing to the state from the motorist. Every affluent city has lots of traffic. It's when there is hardly any traffic, like in the former Communist Eastern Europe, that it's time to worry.

"More roads cause more traffic" is a simplistic argument of anti-car extremists, who are to roads what Beeching and Thatcher were to the railways.

The other big irony is that so many anti-car types actually have cars themselves. Most anti-car politicians have luxury chauffeur driven vehicles provided at the taxpayers expense, or in Ken Livingstone's case taxis paid for through a lavish taxpayer-funded expense account.

The bottom line is that we need all forms of transport to be good, most people travel by train, buse, car, taxi and by foot at some point.
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