New figures show the way we're using the roads in Glasgow is changing, but we may need to go further, says Mark Smith

Here we go, into town, from Pacific Quay to Queen Street. I can’t take the car because it’s not LEZ-compliant and even if it was I’d have to find somewhere to park and raise the money somehow to pay for a parking ticket. I could take the Subway but I wouldn’t get back because it’s Sunday and the subway’s shut by 6pm (6pm!) In the old days, I might’ve jumped in a cab, but a taxi is pushing 15 quid these days. So apart from walking (ha!) there’s only one option left. I have no choice.

As it happens, it’s fine, rather good, better than it used to be certainly. Back in the 1990s, I cycled most days from Shawlands to my job at The Daily Record and you had to take your chances by the side of the road in those days. Now there are lots of cycle lanes in Glasgow – I don’t think the word ‘network’ is justified quite yet – and I can use the lanes to do my journey into town, from Pacific Quay to Queen Street.

Or at least, I almost can. The first part of the trip near Pacific Quay is along the side of the road because there’s no bus lane, and roads means potholes so I use the pavement for a bit, naughty Mark. I’m then able to follow a cycle lane along the south of the river, which links into the cycle lane past Barclays, and on into town. It’s then that it goes a bit wrong: there are bits of cycle lanes but at times it’s hard to tell how to get from one bit to the other; then I’m in the confusion around George Square, and my destination, Queen Street station, is at the other end of a one-way street. So........

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