There’s an episode of Grand Designs from 2019 famed for being the “saddest ever”. In it, Edward and Hazel Short sink their life savings into building the extravagant Chesil Cliff House in North Devon. Inspired by a lighthouse, the dramatic build juts out over a cliff like a modernist white and glass cake.

Like most ambitious renovation projects, Chesil Cliff House was hit with delays. The construction was meant to take 18 months but spanned over 12 years. In the end the project cost the pair their marriage and allegedly left Edward Short in £7 million of debt.

This well-intentioned but utterly dejecting episode crosses my mind while trudging up the Sauchiehall Street building site. Behind the hoarding I can tell something’s been done, I just can’t put my finger on what. And the workers are off for the Glasgow Fair holiday fortnight which Glasgow City Council says doesn’t affect the obscure end of year completion date (for most of the work).

The Avenues Project is dubbed “the largest project of its kind in the UK” encompassing work across the city centre and outlying areas. The £115 million budget is meant to transform the city into an integrated network of pedestrian and cycle routes. Meanwhile, a handful of other areas are set to have their cycle lane networks expanded as part of the Active Travel Strategy. Byres Road has just been completed. Work is now underway to redesign St George’s Road and better link Woodside and the city centre. A bridge connecting Govan and Partick is expected to open in September. There’s an abundance of infrastructure projects happening this year.

Avenues drawingAvenues drawing (Image: Newsquest Archive)

I look at the sunshine dappled cycle lanes and leafy sidewalks in the council’s architectural drawings and think, how nice. I’m looking forward to seeing the back of the rubbish strewn construction sites scattered about town. But a lot of people are really up in arms about the cycle lanes, confusing the annoying mayhem the construction work causes with the finished cycle lanes themselves.

Construction work that drags on far too long is bad for business. Cycle lanes and pedestrianisation? Actually, pretty good it turns out. The go-to document used to make an economic case for creating more public friendly high streets, The Pedestrian Pound, finds that in a cost-of-living crisis, investing in better streets is actually a great way to boost local economies and commercial returns for business. People shop online more, but they are likely to spend time in the city centre if it becomes a destination. Compared to other transport projects, investing in walking and cycling projects can boost retail sales by 30 per cent. More footfall = more trading.

I was in Liverpool for the first time recently and I was blown away by how lively it was. The city seemed to have so many pedestrianised areas where families were milling about, children were playing on street furniture and tipsy revellers swayed off kerbs without risk of being taken out by a car. Sure, there are some pedestrianised areas in Glasgow like Buchanan Street, but even that is sliced up by congested roads that interrupt the overall feeling of calm that comes from a more robust people friendly public sphere.

READ MORE: 

So why is it so hard to see the forest for the trees? Eco-friendly idioms aside, the council’s framing of the project from day dot on both the Avenues and the Active Travel Strategy has been about taking something away rather than giving something back. And a lack of communication with business owners means they only see a potential drop in custom from a loss of parking, rather than a boost in sales from increased footfall.

Making the core council message reducing car miles instead of focussing on the economic benefits of pedestrianisation or the travel efficiencies from cycle lanes puts a lot of passionate motorists on the defensive. The intended reduction in vehicle miles doesn’t have to be from those who want to drive or must drive for accessibility reasons. The reduction will come from allowing those who would rather cycle or walk to do so safely when they choose to, whether they own a car or not.

Rather than seeing cycle lanes as a step towards efficiency, drivers of a certain ilk get frustrated that their lanes are being taken over. But a lot of the time, the drivers aren’t losing any blacktop to bicycles (see Byres Road). Segregated cycle lanes keep cyclists moving fluidly through space and reduce the need for drivers to have to slow to accommodate them. Cycle lanes are so efficient at moving a plethora of people through town that they seem empty. And to the queue of motorists shaking their fists as cyclists whizz past at rush hour: you are not in traffic, you are traffic.

(Image: Newsquest Archive)

No matter how expensive petrol gets there are those who seem to think cars are the only way to bring anyone into the city centre. But perhaps surprisingly to some, there are people out there who choose not to drive. I am one of them. Driving a car these days is prohibitively expensive. I walk everywhere or take Glasgow’s unfortunate public transport system when I must. Cycling is something I would love to get more into. And as the long running infrastructure projects start to come to fruition, it’s starting to seem like a safe option for the first time.

News this week that the final leg of the South City Way connecting Trongate to Queen’s Park was completed makes me hopeful. Heck, I feel confident enough to get my bike out for a safe ride to the Southside this weekend. The route takes about 14 minutes on bike or 45 minutes on foot. In the past three years, just over 3.9 million trips have been made on the route. The same journey costs about £5 round trip on a bus. A taxi would be well over a tenner.

Glasgow has been hard to look at for the past few years and probably will be for the next few. But short-term thinking just leaves me wallowing in a pit of despair. I keep reminding myself how nice it will be once it gets built. Like all grand designs, the infrastructure getting built is not perfect. The cycle lanes have a way to go before being properly accessible to all road users. But, like Edward Short and his “messed-up dreams” I refuse to give up on the leafy vision for the city.

If you enjoyed Marissa’s latest column for The Herald, sign up for The Glasgow Wrap newsletter. Each morning, Marissa curates the top local news stories from around the city, delivering them to your inbox at 7am daily so you can stay up to date on the best reporting without ads, clickbait or annoying digital clutter. Oh, and it’s free: www.theglasgowwrap.substack.com.