Cllr Christy Mearns is the Glasgow Greens' Group Transport Spokesperson - below she discusses the importance to reduce the harms of the M8 in the City Centre, and to have your say on the Transport Scotland consultation.
In Glasgow City Council, Greens have been leading the conversation about the future of the M8 motorway. When it was built, people believed that the private car was the future. However, we now know this was far from the case. Instead of being the positive transformation it was hailed as at the time, communities have been carved up, air pollution and noise nuisance have become an everyday experience for many and roads have become a dominant feature of many public spaces.
Despite the positives which policies to create “people-friendly” spaces have had in Glasgow, the M8 in Glasgow is a major barrier to doing this on a meaningful scale. You only have to walk across Charing Cross, Cowcaddens, Dundsvale, Townhead, and other areas, to see why. Here, the car is still king and it is local people that suffer. The biggest irony is that many vehicles using the M8 are not coming into the city, but simply through it, so local people pay for it more than once: in car-centric public realm and in the air pollution these visiting vehicles bring.
As well as the impact on local neighbourhoods, motorways in city centres are clearly at odds with our environmental goals and our need to reduce private car use in order to tackle the climate emergency. At present, it is far too easy to drive into and through Glasgow, when we know that the focus must be on policies which encourage more sustainable travel behaviours. Clearly, we still have a need for roads, as many people do rely on a car, however we need to consider whether Glasgow’s future contains such a significant level of motorway infrastructure right through it, or whether we can do something better for those who live here and to help encourage modal shift at the same time.
Many cities around the world never had motorways built right through them and many others that did have since removed them to improve their cities and citizens’ health. It’s time that Glasgow took meaningful steps to do this, too, and so it is really welcome that Transport Scotland are finally considering the removal of the M8 Woodside Viaduct as a viable option. Despite the short-term impacts there might be on increasing congestion in certain areas, it is clear that this is the only transformational option which would meaningfully begin to address the negative impacts of the M8 and deliver a better future for people and planet.
Of course, we need to continue to deliver public transport improvements as an alternative to private car use, and this in in motion. With improvements to the cost of public transport with Greens’ in Holyrood and Glasgow City Council championing free bus travel, as well as the scrapping of peak rail fares, and the progress towards bus franchising which we will continue to make a priority, too.
As well as the more obvious implications on health and well-being, the cost of fixing the crumbling pillars and platforms of the M8 is increasing year on year. Significant sums have already been spent making repairs and can we justify spending an additional £500 million to replace the infrastructure or £300 million to repair it, when investment will continue to be required in the future, and when this will simply continue the status quo which is decades more car journeys coming through our city, decades more air pollution affecting our citizens, and decades more of the same poor environment in our neighbourhoods in some of our most deprived communities?
In a desperate financial climate and with private car being directly in contrast to the solutions needed to address the climate crisis, it’s time that we looked differently - and we now have an opportunity to do so with the latest consultation underway on the future of the M8 Woodside Viaduct. Let Transport Scotland know what you think about option 3, to remove the viaduct, and imagine a greener, healthier Glasgow of the future!
The next Transport Scotland public event is on Wednesday 4th March, 10-5pm, at Woodside Halls, or alternatively have your say online at https://www.pinpointcloud.co.uk/M8WoodsideViaducts/