M8 motorway

The M8 is a motorway in Scotland. It runs west from Edinburgh, connecting Livingston, Airdrie, Coatbridge, Glasgow and Paisley, finishing 13 km (8 miles) west of Greenock, on the south bank of the River Clyde. The M8 was largely completed by 1970. Together with the as-yet unbuilt extension to the M74, the M8 forms two sides of an uncompleted ring road around Glasgow city centre.

Regarded as one of the most poorly-designed motorways in the UK, rivalled only by London's infamous M25, the Central Glasgow section of the M8 is notorious for bottlenecks and delays between the M8's eastern and western sections. This is largely due to the closely spaced junctions, and the fact that both the M73 and M80 from the south and north east dump all their traffic onto a 5-lane stretch that in the space of a 3 km (2 miles) reduces to only 2 lanes as the M8 blasts a path through the city centre.

The northern extension of the M74 to just south of the Kingston Bridge should alleviate some of the congestion problems, but this is not planned to be completed until 2008.

To cross the River Clyde at Glasgow city centre, the M8 incorporates the Kingston Bridge, the busiest motorway river crossing in Europe.

The M8 closely parallels, and in part replaces, the A8 road. The M8 is broken at one point, at the eastern edge of Glasgow between Baillieston and Newhouse, where it reverts to the being the A8 for 10 km (6 miles) before becoming a motorway again near Shotts. An upgrade programme instigated in late 2002 improved the quality of this section of road greatly, but it remained an A-classified dual carriageway, and the long overdue task of upgrading this section to motorway standard has been a thorny issue for the Scottish Executive, who continue to procrastinate over making a decision.

Trivia

  • The Central Glasgow section of the M8 was the one of the first motorways in the UK to feature the advanced CITRAC (Centrally Integrated TRAffic Control) system. A network of CCTV cameras around the motorway and its primary feeder routes is linked to a central Police control room, who can use it to identify problems and activate the system of overhead lane signals above the motorway. It is linked to the NADICS system.
  • Several redundant bridges were built over the city centre section of the M8, but were never put to use. The infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" (in the Charing Cross district) was intended to be the platform for a restaurant which would look down onto the motorway. It never materialised. In 1990, an office block was eventually built atop the bridge.
  • Despite the fact that the Inner Ring Road project was never completed, signs on the city centre stretches of the M8 and its feeder roads still carried the words "Ring Road" until the late 1980s before they were finally removed.
  • A dead-end flyover was built onto the end of the Kingston Bridge in anticipation of the M74 extension. 34 years on, it still waits for the elusive motorway connection to be built.
  • The perfectly straight section of motorway between Junctions 26 and 27 in Renfrewshire was originally the runway of the former Renfrew Airport, which closed in 1966, following the opening of Glasgow Airport a few miles further west. Hillington Industrial Estate, which looks on to this section of the M8 and still includes the Rolls Royce plant, originally started its life as the aircraft engineering facility within the airport complex.
  • A picture of the M8 is featured on Glasgow band Deacon Blue's famous 1987 album "Raintown", where a stunning nighttime long-exposure image of the northern approach to the Kingston Bridge taken from the aforementioned "Bridge to Nowhere" appears on the back cover of the album.
  • In the aftermath of the M8's completion, the UK Government declared that it would be the last motorway to be built through a UK city.

See also: List of motorways in the United Kingdom

Key M8 milestones

  • 1970 Central Glasgow section completed
  • 1990 Kingston Bridge found to be deteriorating, signalling major repair work
  • 1991 M8 extended to Hermiston Gait, Edinburgh city bypass
  • 1992 Plantation off-ramp demolished to be replaced by M80 Stepps by-pass
  • 1993 St. James' Interchange near Paisley and Linwood opens
  • 2003 A8 between Baillieston and Newhouse upgraded to almost-motorway standard

See also

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