Eye Spy Glasgow: How the M8 changed the landscape of Glasgow city centre

The M8, the first real motorway built in Scotland, began life as a four mile section called the Harthill Bypass.

And still the building work goes on as regular travellers on the M8 will testify.

When it is completed, it will deliver the vision from half a century ago, of linking the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The centre of Glasgow changed significantly as the American-style super-freeway took shape along part of the old Monkland Canal snaking its way through Townhead and onwards towards Cowcaddens and eventually over the Kingston Bridge into the south side of the city.

While hearts ached and protestors rallied around Charing Cross, still the buildings fell to create one of the most significant roadways in the country.

Stuart Baird, a civil engineer behind the authoritative Glasgow Motorways website, describes the M8 as one of the country's most important roads, transforming vehicle travel across central Scotland and providing a route that is safe and reliable.

The last part of the motorway within Glasgow's boundaries was completed in 1980.

Today, the M8 stretches for 60 miles between Scotland's two main cities, via Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and West Lothian.

Back in the 1960s there was real pressure on the city planners to banish all thoughts and aspirations for such a development.

“Who needs eight lanes of a motorway thundering through Townhead?”

“The Glaswegians of tomorrow,” would have been an apposite response although it did little to please the displaced.

The planners, however, got their way.

As a motorway the M8 is unique because it does indeed thunder through the city and many communities on its way.

Usually such highways tend to bypass urban areas rather than go directly to their heart.

Hard as it may be to imagine, some parts of the old A8, the predecessor to the M8 had three lanes, with the middle one used to overtake in both directions!

It wasn’t quite as gentlemanly as the characters on ITMA (It’s that Man Again) on the BBC: “After you, Claude.” “No, after, you, Cecil.” 

What was required was a brand-new motorway along a safer route.

“In Glasgow there was a massive building programme for a good few years,” said Stuart Baird.

“There were even plans for more motorways, which, however, were cancelled.

“The motorways were designed for traffic flows that were 20, 30 years in the future. Flows were projected as far as 1990 or 2000, which at the time was unknown in forward planning.”

So, once again, Glasgow took the lead, as the city has shown itself very capable of doing so over the years.

Without the M8, it is unlikely the city would have been able to lead on such effective pedestrianisation of Buchanan Street and Sauchiehall Street.

As the motorway was being built, there was a series of practice Saturdays of a traffic-free Sauchiehall Street.

It may have caused indignation for some Glaswegians armed with their shopping bags having to catch the bus home from elsewhere “in the town”.

But for some, there was the daringness of walking in the middle of the street, having a dilly-dally and a blether where normally corporation buses and trucks would trundle.

The visionaries behind the M8 were often troubled by objectors. But they persisted and transformed Glasgow.