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MSPs have been called on to investigate ways the M8 motorway through Glasgow city centre could be “removed or reduced”.
In a petition uploaded to the Scottish Parliament website, campaigners claim the land given over to the huge carriageway would be better off used to rebuild communities that were flattened in the 1960s.
It comes as the Scottish Government is currently spending £35 million to prop up the ageing Woodside viaduct which carries traffic between Charing Cross and Townhead.
The Record previously reported how one Labour MSP has branded the project a “colossal waste of money” and environmentally damaging in the year of COP26.
Paul Sweeney said Glasgow should be looking to the example of cities in the US and Europe which have already replaced freeways with roads which blend in better with their surroundings.
In a letter to active travel minister and Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie, the Glasgow MSP said the motorway works had caused pedestrian improvements under the viaduct, which would have reconnected New City Road between St George’s Cross and Cowcaddens, to be halted.
The new petition, uploaded by campaigner Peter Kelly, calls on MSPs “to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent feasibility study to investigate scenarios for reducing the impact of the M8 between the M74 and Glasgow Cathedral including, specifically, complete removal and repurposing of the land”.
It adds: “It is not clear whether the commitment to ongoing maintenance of the elevated M8 has been evaluated in light of the new cooperation agreement between the SNP and Green Party which states ‘we will not build road infrastructure to cater for unconstrained increases in traffic’.”
The petition will be considered by Holyrood’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee after it stops collecting signatures later this month.
Construction of the M8 through the city centre was hugely controversial as it led to almost entire districts being demolished, despite Glasgow having among the lowest levels of car ownership of any major urban area.
Car dependency – and the need to encourage more people to use alternative forms of transport – is expected to be a major talking point at the COP26 climate conference at the SEC.
A Transport Scotland spokeswoman told the Record that works on the M8 Woodside viaduct were “essential to maintain the strategic connectivity of this vital part of the trunk road network”.
They added: “Maintenance of this section of the road was always scheduled at this time, but the required works will be more extensive than originally planned.”
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