Transport Scotland has yet to decide on the M8 Woodside viaducts, one of Glasgow's most consequential infrastructure decisions in a generation.

Many Glasgow Chamber members don't recognise that name, so they haven't grasped what the three published options would mean. The evidence needed for a decision this size doesn't yet exist, and the options need far more analysis. This is too important to get wrong.

Under one option (the one for which Glasgow City Council has already expressed a public preference) a substantial section of the M8 would simply be removed, severing one of the most important national transport arteries as it passes through the city’s centre. Deciding now risks getting ahead of evidence that just isn't ready yet.

The viaducts, built in 1971 between Craighall and Charing Cross, now carry roughly 150,000 vehicles a day, albeit at a rather slow pace. They have been propped up since March 2021 at a cost to the public purse of more than £150 million in temporary repairs.

Boulevard solution posed for Glasgow M8 stretch demolition plan

Transport Scotland has consulted on three initial approaches: repair, replace or remove.  Glasgow City Council’s preferred option, remove, is pitched as a once-in-a generation chance to reclaim land and reconnect neighbourhoods split apart since the 1970s.

I understand the appeal. Cities from Seoul to Portland to San Francisco have shown that on occasion, removing urban motorways can deliver real benefit, and the Chamber’s own evidence review has explored those examples. There can be significant localised city regeneration results – but every city is different and the wider........

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