Skip to main content

Glasgow's new link opening

A new highway link is opening today in the Scottish city of Glasgow.
February 28, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A new highway link is opening today in the Scottish city of Glasgow. The 8km link may have cost as much as €772.4 million (£692 million) to build, around three times the original estimate for the work. The final amount for the actual cost of construction has yet to be accurately determined. The road is built as a fly-over for much of its length and connects the M74 motorway at Carmyle with the M8 motorway southwest of the Kingston Bridge in central Glasgow.

The project has been dogged by controversy since permission was given for the go-ahead back in late 1995. Critics say the link has been too expensive and will be detrimental to the environment in the area of city where it has been built. Supporters of the project however say the link will help unclog traffic Glasgow's centre at peak periods and will also help boost the economy in the area, as well as improving road safety and reducing risks to vulnerable road users in the city. Opponents of the scheme launched a number of leal challenges which helped delay construction but work on the link finally got underway in May 2008. The project was carried out by Interlink M74, a joint venture comprising 1146 Balfour Beatty, Morgan Est, Morrison Construction and 3081 Sir Robert McAlpine.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Scottish Roads Partnership to complete Central Scotland motorway network
    August 30, 2013
    Scottish Roads Partnership (SRP) has been announced as preferred bidder for the design, construction, financing and operation of a major infrastructure project to complete the Central Scotland motorway network. The key project will complete the motorway network between Glasgow and Edinburgh by upgrading the A8 trunk road between Baillieston and Newhouse to full motorway standards. It also includes work to improve the Raith Interchange and widening key sections of the M8, M73 and M74. This involves constr
  • Brisbane’s new airport link is an engineering success
    April 12, 2013
    Financial troubles for Brisbane's new Airport Link overshadow its construction success – Adrian Greeman writes. Political argument and legal dispute is likely to rage for some time yet over the bankruptcy of Australian road operator BrisConnect, which went into receivership this February with A$3 billion in debt. Toll paying users for its new Airport Link have been less than half the predicted numbers since it opened in July last summer. But if its nancial engineering is being questioned, the same is not t
  • Supporting the highways sector during the pandemic
    April 20, 2020
    The Highways sector Council is supporting the highways sector during the pandemic.
  • Controversial Russian bridge opens
    August 10, 2018
    The first stage of a controversial Russian bridge project is now complete, with the link having been opened to use by cars and buses. The Kerch Strait bridge spans the Black Sea, connecting Russia’s Taman Peninsula in Krasnodar with Crimea, the latter having been controversially annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. The official opening of the 19km-long bridge was carried out by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who drove across the link in a Russian-manufactured Kamaz truck to reach the city of Kerch.