The Woodside viaducts are crumbling – despite tens of millions of pounds being spent on propping them up – and some residents want radical alternatives to be considered.
Glasgow should look to the examples of New York and San Fransisco when it comes to redeveloping a crumbling section of the M8 motorway, a Scottish Labour MSP has said.
Transport chiefs are currently considering what do with the Woodside viaducts – which pass Cowcaddens to the north of the city centre – as the condition of the concrete structures is progressively worsening despite being under constant repair since 2021.
The SNP-led Glasgow City Council last week raised eyebrows after announcing it backed the total demolition of the viaducts and replacing them with a street-level road or “boulevard”.
Glasgow MSP Paul Sweeney – a prominent campaigner for improved public transport in the city – told the Record he supports support “a compromise option of replacing the obsolete and ugly viaducts with a more urban boulevard road at surface level”
A final decision on the viaducts rests with Transport Scotland but there is already significant local support for a total rethink of how the motorway interacts with the city centre.
An ongoing programme to temporarily prop-up the viaducts is ongoing but could end up costing taxpayers £152m, with transport chiefs keen to identify a long-term solution.
Sweeney told the Record: “I have been involved in the Replace the M8 project to explore alternatives to the 1970s motorway through the centre of Glasgow for the last four years. I have repeatedly raised the matter with Ministers in Parliament and I also met with Transport Scotland officials at the consultation just before the election.
“I was impressed by their open mindedness about the various options to tackle the complex and expensive problem of the crumbling Woodside viaducts. The structures were actually built higher and wider than is needed, as the planned interchange with the Maryhill motorway along the Forth & Clyde Canal was successfully opposed in the mid-1970s by Labour councillors Vince Cable and John Gray, after a public outcry at the damage caused by the initial phases of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road project.
“Completely removing the trunk road route through central Glasgow would be very difficult to achieve, so I support a compromise option of replacing the obsolete and ugly viaducts with a more urban boulevard road at surface level. It has already been done successfully in San Francisco with the Embarcadero and Octavia Boulevard, as well as in New York City with the new Sheridan Boulevard and replacement of the West Side Elevated Highway.
“As much of the motorway traffic bypasses Glasgow city centre anyway, a large share of it could be redirected from the M80 and M77 round the M73 and M74 with new slip roads, reducing unnecessary traffic flow on a new urban boulevard.”
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The decision in the 1960s to construct a motorway through the heart of Glasgow city centre proved hugely controversial at the time. It led to the wholesale demolition of several residential districts as well as flattening landmark buildings like the Grand Hotel at Charing Cross.
WSP UK, the engineering and professional services firm, was appointed by SNP ministers in January last year to provide technical advice.
A Transport Scotland consultation this spring outlined three options, of which the cheapest was closing that section of the M8 and diverting drivers to the city road network or the M74. This would cost £125 million and take two years to put in place.
Further repairs and reinforcement of the viaducts would take up to three years and cost about £200 million, and replacing the viaducts would take up to four years and cost up to £500 million.
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