IT looks just like any other building site. But the work going on in the small patch of land just off Eglinton Street in the South Side is the beginning of the end of 36 years of frustration for city motorists.

IT looks just like any other building site. But the work going on in the small patch of land just off Eglinton Street in the South Side is the beginning of the end of 36 years of frustration for city motorists.

It is here that the first pier will be sunk in the long-awaited and controversial M74 motorway extension project.

The Port Eglinton Viaduct, which will carry traffic over the main West Coast rail line and Pollokshaws Road, will be one of the most striking bridges on the five-mile stretch of road - and as big as the Kingston Bridge.

If all goes to schedule, the £500million project will be completed in 2011 and the "missing link" in Scotland's roads network will be no more.

Once finished it will join the M8 at the Kingston Bridge with the Fullarton Roundabout at Auchen-
shuggle in Glasgow's East End - where the M74 currently ends.

Supporters of the new road claim it will plug a glaring gap and allow traffic to run much more smoothly as well as benefiting the economy.

But opponents have always felt it was needless and would cause social and environmental harm.

Drivers have been waiting since 1972 for the road to be completed to ease the traffic in Glasgow's South Side and through Rutherglen and Cambuslang.

The work in Eglinton Street - on a site bounded by Devon Street, Turriff Street and Mackinlay Street - is the start of construction of the Port Eglinton Viaduct.

When completed it will be one of 13 bridges over roads, railways and waterways built for the project.

Work has also started to clear and flatten land at Scotland Street, at the south end of the Kingston Bridge and there are also engineers in place at Farmeloan Road in the East End and Cathcart Road.

Transport Scotland said its teams have hit the ground running at a number of sites along the five-mile stretch.

Project director David Mustard said: "It is the largest construction site in the road network in Scotland at the moment.

"The target is to have it built by 2011 so we have a four-year construction period.

"There is recognisable work going on now because we have been doing site clearing and ground engineering work to consolidate old mine workings and foundations.

"At the Port Eglinton Viaduct we are putting in piles and foundations just now.

"We are working from both ends of the project and are hitting the ground on most of the length of the scheme at the moment.

"It really is a missing link. This will bring huge benefits not just to Glasgow but the whole of the west and south of Scotland."

Since the official start of construction in April there have been major topographical, drainage and ecological surveys carried out along the route.

An archaeological dig was conducted on the Eglinton Street site to discover more about the tenements and businesses which used to line the area.

Engineers and specialist teams have also carried out site investigations and cleared vegetation and redundant fencing.

Buildings have been demolished and a number of others are still to come down - although not the old St Andrews Printworks in Mackinlay Street, which is a listed building.

Businesses on the route have been relocated and three drainage outfalls to the River Clyde have been created.

As well as the 13 bridges, there will be four major road junctions built - at the Kingston Bridge, Polmadie Road, Cambuslang Road and Fullarton Road.

By the time the road is finished workers will have carried out 180,000 cubic metres of earthworks to excavate the route and a further 1.5million cubic metres to fill it.

The project includes 25,000 tonnes of steelwork fabrication and 15,474 tonnes of steel reinforcement.

Completion will require 64,985 cubic metres of structural concrete, 3629 cubic metres of concrete wall and 30,532 cubic metres of concrete roadworks.

The road surface will use 253,500 tonnes of low noise materials in a bid to cause minimal sound pollution to homes bordering the new route.

Rocky road for M-way extension

REACHING the building stage of the M74 extension has been anything but plain sailing.

Plans for the missing link' were first mooted in 1988 and finally approved in 1995.

Anti-road activists threatened to derail the project, with claims the road would harm the environment and lead to traffic chaos.

The main protest body - No M74 Group - was led by Rosie Kane, later a Scottish Socialist Party MSP.

There was even a group called Stop The Auchenshuggle Autobahn, which wanted the project scrapped.

In 2005 protesters set up camp in grassland between Eglinton Street and Pollokshaws Road.

Calling themselves Cre8, they opposed the extension and the G8 Summit at Gleneagles.

Before any work on the road began, Transport Scotland funded a £4.9million archaeological dig of the five-mile stretch.

The Eglinton Street site was dug up, unearthing an 1856 tenement called Rosehill and the remains of Abbotsford Parish Church.

It also unearthed the cobbled street of a cooperage and a farrier's shop far below the site of the existing roads.

At a public inquiry into the new route in 2003, Scottish Executive officials claimed Glasgow's economy would benefit by £4.4billion and 25,000 new jobs.