Hot on the heels of the Scottish Parliament

[crusty_bint]

Gies fucking peace! Glasgow City Council are NOT footing the entire bill for the M74, but be damn well sure, Glasgow WILL prolly benefit most from it.

Glasgow AND its parasitic conurbation, and indeed the whole of Scotland on some level!

Back to the subject matter: Glasgow is NOT footing the entire bill for the new NATIONAL Indoor Sports arena, the plan for which has been expanded to include the offices for SportSctland who are relocating to Glasgow, and a velodrome. The Scottish Exec had already confirmed it would be footing £13.5m of the bill which will, most probably, rise in line with the new revised total costs and I'm pretty sure surrounding agencies, organisations and companies will also have a hand in finiancing tis project - regardless of however slight you might think it. I wll concede, however, that its disappointing that the initial proposal hadn't taken into consideration the cost of remediating the site before construction as a decent QS at the beginning should have taken this into consideration... BUT... considering the POSITIVE impact on, and legacy it will leave to the east end I'd say £70m is still a bargain!

[jack]

OH COME ON, Sorry to go back to the M74, do you really think Glasgow's going to profit from the extension, in what way.

The extension makes it easier and quicker to bypass the city.

The independent enquiry, which the Scottish Exec commisioned, found that the m74 would have a negative impact on Glasgow, economically and enviromentally and their conclusion was that it shouldn't be built.

In all previous motorway extensions in the uk, widening and new builds congestion has increased, ie pollution as well.

So the question is who in Glasgow will actually benefit, very few I reckon

[PlasticDel]

OH COME ON, Sorry to go back to the M74, do you really think Glasgow's going to profit from the extension, in what way.
The extension makes it easier and quicker to bypass the city.
So the question is who in Glasgow will actually benefit, very few I reckon

By pass it! WHY? It's the retail capital of the country and it's 100 times easier to get into than Edinburgh (by car). It's like the 2nd or 3rd most popular sopt for tourists after London! It's got two of the countrys largest football teams, the countrys national football stadium and lord know how many colleges and universitys. Some bleeding science museum, the SECC and prolly the countries highest employment rate* It' the biggest city in the country.

Why would you pass it by to go someplace else!?!?!? Unless you actually WANT to go some place else (there are other places), in which case people are less likely to get caught in traffic jams or have to travel THROUGH the city centre to get to the other side.



*I'm sure you could work it out one way or another.

[jack]

well if the M74 doesn't bypass the city, then what does it bring to Glasgow.

You only have to look around Glasgow to see the negative impact the existing motorway has on areas. Anderston, Kingston, Charing Cross, tradeston need I continue. The motorway divided up the city fabric and left large areas inaccessable, and cut off.

Building the M74, doesn't mean that they will knock down the motorway in the city centre, it just means there is another motorway driven [excuse the pun] right through the southside of the city. yet again cutting off areas.

The states did this to there cities in the 60's and are now realising what a mistake they made, and are spending billions on burying and redirecting motorways away from the city centre. Glasgow's a fantastic city but it's crazy they're building this, when all the talk is about getting people out of their cars and investing in public transport, why are we doing the opposite, for such a forward looking city it's a shame they're building some thing that was planned decades ago, and is completely out of date.

[hazy]

The whole point of the extesion is to alleviate the traffic build up on the congested Kingston bridge. Road bridges are designed for flowing traffic and not static traffic.
A lot of the vehicles that use the bridge do so just to get through Glasgow for buisness purposes. Therefore a bypass is a correct solution. As for the economic benifits, I dont really know.

[Roxburgh]

There are a lot of things in this thread that I agree with. Generally, I'm in favour of infrastructure projects and most of the public infrastructure projects in Glasgow have been beneficial.

Having said that, I agree with jack that putting the M8 through Glasgow was a mistake in terms of its impact on the inner city. It wasn't a good solution for people whose destination was Glasgow and it is a terrible solution for through traffic. However, I do think it reasonable that we look to put through traffic around the city if we can. It would be good if it can be done in a way that is community friendly as well as environmentally friendly.

I think the council lost some opportunities in the 1960s to invest in public transport. We had a commuter railway network that was pretty good and a functioning subway. The opportunities were there to extend and link those in a far more effective way than was actually done. I remember well the debates about using the old railway line running under the Botanics and out to Maryhill but, in the end, all we got was a Park'n'Ride at Kelvinbridge.

If Glasgow is to be a retail centre and a business centre then making it easy to drive into the city is one option but far from the only or even the best option. In the real world you need a mixed solution because some people will always want to drive. You reduce that number by offereing viable and economic alternatives.

Given that I started the thread on the subject of council/government overspend then I should really add a couple more comments. First of all, it doesn't actually matter if it is Glasgow spending the money or some other part of government. It is still the public purse and we still end up paying for it. Its just that more people share the pain.

Secondly, government overspend is a scandal and there is no excuse - but sadly no accountability either - for bad management. This thread has been full of excuses ... 3 years, construction costs have gone up, the builders are busy, shortage of skilled staff, cost of copper (use something else then), oil prices, land values (thought they had the land) etc. etc.. Underpinning this is the assumption that government always underestimates so its okay. I don't think it is okay and I'm fed up with the excuses. If I did that at my work I would be out of a job pdq. Does anyone really believe that it will end at the 76m?

Finally, if private interests are going to benefit directly (as opposed to benefiting from the general economic uplift of the area) as hinted at in the Herald article, can we have them divvie up some of the cost?

[dave2]

It would be intresting if a political party were willing to invest similar ammounts for each road project into public transport in a kind of matched funding way.

IE. In order for The Scottish Exec to fund the £500 million M74 extension, they would also have to pay for (these are only examples)

Crossrail - including a new interchange at West St,
Electrification of WQuueen St - Anniesland line allowing Trains to run from the Crossrail line via either Anniesland or Springburn in Queen St HighLevel.
Improved bus connections across the city - interchanges
Smart ticketing on buses / trains / subway with cards which you charge with money and it then deducts the cost of each journey (a bit like the London Oystercard)

This system would not deal with things that would not affect simnilar routes - ie M74 money should be used to improve travel around Glasgow (ie Crossrail from South West to North) and improved bus links to reduce local demand on the motorways.


Meanwhile, back in the real world, Scotland continues to build more roads per capita than the rest of the UK.[/list]

[Roxburgh]

I should have added above that hindsight is always 20-20 vision. So it is perhaps unfair to criticise the 1960s planners for getting the M8 wrong. After all, planners everywhere got their projections wrong. The real question is whether anything has been learned from this. Are planners still grossly underestimating future capacity (as well as the real cost of their projects)?.

Dave2 has a point. When you compare investment in roads with investment in public transportation, there is a mismatch. This is also very true of public transport options to our major sports venues. The only one which has half-decent transport is Ibrox due to the proximity of the subway and even this is only partially sufficient.

If we plan to spend 76 million (or 100m, 125m, 150m .... take yer pick) on this arena in the East End, what public transport options are being considered and how do they link in with the rest of the network?

[PlasticDel]

It would be intresting if a political party were willing to invest similar ammounts for each road project into public transport in a kind of matched funding way.

IE. In order for The Scottish Exec to fund the £500 million M74 extension, they would also have to pay for (these are only examples)

Crossrail - including a new interchange at West St,
Electrification of WQuueen St - Anniesland line allowing Trains to run from the Crossrail line via either Anniesland or Springburn in Queen St HighLevel.
Improved bus connections across the city - interchanges
Smart ticketing on buses / trains / subway with cards which you charge with money and it then deducts the cost of each journey (a bit like the London Oystercard)

This system would not deal with things that would not affect simnilar routes - ie M74 money should be used to improve travel around Glasgow (ie Crossrail from South West to North) and improved bus links to reduce local demand on the motorways.

1. The M74 isn't for the exclusive use or benefit of Glasgow City, so improving YOUR bus links helps only YOU.

2. Buses and Railways are private, and should not get the sort of public funding that PUBLIC projects get, ie the M74 extension. Any initiatives that those companies want to implement regarding tickets or improving your journey time etc should be done out of their pockets

[Roxburgh]

2. Buses and Railways are private, and should not get the sort of public funding that PUBLIC projects get, ie the M74 extension. Any initiatives that those companies want to implement regarding tickets or improving your journey time etc should be done out of their pockets

Which is really stupid btw. Even the Americans recognise that public ownership of commuter transport is desirable.

But if we take that to the next level, would you argue that the new sports infrastructure in the east end should not get publicly funded public transportation because that should be privately funded?

[crusty_bint]

A google would throw up the answers you seek in regards to possible [public] transport links to the new arena, however to save you the boter, have a look at http://www.futureglasgow.co.uk

[escotregen]

On the point about investment in public transport, if there is sufficient such investment it will actually reduce car usage. If there are fast, clean and safe buses and trains then people will use them in preference to cars. Unfortunately, from my experience last night in Glasgow, the public transport fails on all accounts; took me from 4.55 to 6.10 to travel from Union Street to Rutherglen on a dirty and seriously overcrowded bus (does Helath and Safety just not apply to overcrowding on Glasgow buses?)

I've just returned from Portugal; a supposedly 'poorer' country than ours. Like the Irish they took great advantage of EU funding while it lasted and built superb (if hugely over-specified) motorways and dual carriages. But they also used the money to heavily invest in public transport. Consequently, we were able to use very regular, affordable and really clean buses to travel local and long distances. We experienced much the same in Spain in recent years.

As for the underground... well it's just so bad now it's a discrace to the city. Naturally in such circumstances, many people will just opt for sitting in their polluting cars in endless traffic jams... still better than the current state of public transport in the city.

[dave2]

Yeah, I guess my matched funding point was that if say instead of building a 3 lane motorway scross the southside, it had only been a 2 lane road, or better still some kind of expressway which wasn't up in the air, but served the same function, and we had spent only £250 million but had spent £250 million on ways for some people who would have used to road to move around by public transport then for the same spend you get improved public transport, a decrease in traffic on that route and the cheaper road now has suitable capacity for the reduced load.

I guess it's joined up Transport - not pro roads or anti car, but using teh two in a complementary way. Which we might get now we have a Transport Agency looking after road, rail, bus, ferry and air.

The M74 extension is an interesting one in that it will particularly South West of Glasgow - South East of Glasgow travel. This travel is evry difficult to acheive by public transport withoiut chnaging in Central (ie coming into the city). I guess a public transport alternative here would have been a rail line from Paisley (or even the airport) via East Kilbride to join the west coast line at Newton or Hamilton. This would facilitate renfrewshire - south lanarkshire movements easily.

Back to my dreaming anyway I just saw a flying pig.....