Our roads have more craters than the moon. Ahead of the Commonwealth Games, cyclists and motorists should join forces to report them all, writes Herald columnist Marissa MacWhirter.

It was just after 9am on Wednesday morning when I stepped out of Buchanan Bus Station and onto the windswept streets towards Glasgow Central Station.

After a long overdue trip to Budapest to visit a friend, I’m relieved that the trains are running post-Union Corner fire again (this is the top slice of sourdough on my returning-to-Glasgow-post-holiday feedback sandwich). Juggling an overstuffed tote bag between aching shoulders and wiping murky streaks of rain from my face, I’m overcome with that post-vacation perceptual reset. I see the city with the gaze of a tourist, and I’m crestfallen.

Everywhere you look, there are potholes, rubble, Heras fencing, plastic roadwork barriers, pop-up homeless tents, vacant shop units, vacant restaurant units, vacant buildings, derelict buildings, unfinished building sites – you get the idea. Getting right back on that bus and heading straight back to the airport does cross my mind, but I persevere. Inside Central Station, I’m greeted by the Longines Countdown Clock for the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. We have about 16 weeks to go. Oh boy.

The next morning, Thursday, I decide altruism could be the answer to my crippling state-of-Glasgow depression. I think of the Artemis II circling the blue sky overhead, carrying astronauts to the moon for the first time in more than fifty years, and I’ve got it. Potholes. Craters are for the moon, not Scotland’s largest city.

Road surface on Grange Road in Glasgow. (Image: Newsquest)

Glasgow City Council has a statutory duty to manage and maintain all adopted public roads, which means sorting out the potholes. The most commonly cited informal benchmark for fixing a pothole is a 40mm depth, according to the RAC, but this has no legal standing in Scotland. In Glasgow, the 2019 road repair manual states: “Taking a risk-based approach…means that there are NO prescriptive investigation or intervention levels to apply.” It continues: “In the past, this has led to inappropriate and often unnecessary, costly, temporary repairs.”

An entire social media economy has emerged from our collective dissatisfaction with Glasgow’s roads. On TikTok, a driving instructor laments that he is meant to teach safety to students, but there are craters on his route that leave no safe option for avoidance. Another video shows a council worker allegedly fixing a pothole at 1.45am with cold tar before rolling it with their pickup truck.

Armed with my bicycle and the Glasgow CC app, I head off to fulfil my civic duty and report some of the worst offenders on my route. The official pothole reporting protocol (using the app – you can also phone in, use the website, tell the ward councillor or use FixMyStreet) involves allowing the app to use my location, taking a picture for evidence, then filling out a few questions about where the pothole is located, how often I have to avoid it, and how dangerous it is.

After a pothole has been reported, it’s assigned to an inspector who applies the risk matrix detailed in the repair manual and decides the priority of said hole in the road. I’m not sure if they judge this for cyclists separately. If the “defect” doesn’t meet the threshold for action, case closed.

The council is only liable for damage to vehicles caused by the roads if it knew or should have known about a road defect and failed to act. No pothole report, no liability. This is where community pothole reporting can come in. The idea is that over time, we could create a richer log of hazards that would make it easier to hold the council accountable when they don’t act. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s all we have. Needless to say, the policy needs to be seriously overhauled (here’s looking at you, wannabe MSPs).

Glasgow received 2,794 claims in 2024 for vehicle damage against a 1,203-mile road network, which is about 2.3 claims per mile of road. By comparison, Edinburgh recorded about 1 claim per mile. Glasgow led all Scottish councils by paying out more than £150,000 in 2024, yet the average payout was only £253 per settled claim. The system leaves the council well protected from claims under the Roads (Scotland) Act. One AA analysis found the settlement rate was as low as three per cent.

Sustained under-investment in the road network began around 2014. That was the last year the roads were properly funded, and we have been in a structural deficit ever since. Glasgow residents have essentially been paying a hidden tax thanks to underinvestment through vehicle damage and the knock-on effects of slower journeys and increased NHS costs, according to a Transport Scotland study. Savings on the maintenance budget are just dumped on everyone else – every £1 saved on the roads adds £1.50 to the wider economy.

While this is the first year in more than a decade that spending on carriageways is above the bare minimum, we are still just managing decline. A 3-year £119m roads package announced by the council is about a quarter of the total cash needed by their own estimates.

It is better in the long run to invest in the road network proactively, but firefighting has been the policy du jour for decades, so here we are.  A combination of austerity, brutal winters, underinvestment and poor repairs has created a full-blown crisis that impacts motorists, bus drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians (the pavements are just as bad).

For the most part, the potholes and the horrible road surface have slipped into the recesses of my mind; it is just a fact of life. But with these fresh eyes, camera at the ready, I am reminded of just how horrible the streets really are.

I picture Duncan Scott swimming freestyle across the first one. Diving was one of the sports to be axed from the Games this year, but in my mind’s eye, a mini-Olympic diver is pulling off some kind of reverse somersault in the pike position on the next one. Tap tap tap, and the council has been notified.

By the time I’m on Grange Road, my deadline is looming, and there is just no way to log the number of dangerous defects. I report the entire stretch under the Poor Condition option.

When I get home, I think surely, they must have plans to resurface Grange Road. It is right next to Sanctuary’s fiasco flats at the old Victoria Infirmary site. Apparently, improvements in the Grange Road area, as part of the Connecting Battlefield project, were due to start last autumn. Let’s hope they sort it out before something terrible happens. A pothole could cost a motorist a tyre, sure. But when I’m cycling, I do worry one could cost me my life.

Reporting the potholes is a big job. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to fill the potholes ourselves and doing so could be a criminal offence in this country. Like the way our communities come together for litter picks, maybe we could come together for the odd pothole reporting blitz.

Much of the infrastructure rhetoric in the city divides motorists and cyclists. Potholes, and our mutual fear and loathing for them, could finally bring us all together. Just as the first Apollo mission brought humanity together and transcended Cold War politics, the rugged, pockmarked streets of Glasgow could bond commuters of all kinds.

Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1

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