M8 in the 1970s

[Chris5156]

The Maryhill Motorway was indeed intended as the M81, the north link the M82 and the south link/east link the M83. These numbers come directly from interviews I have conducted with one of the Highway Plan lead designers/later directors of Scott Wilson. As an aside the only number to ever officially make it onto a construction drawing/document (the Gantry/local road sign drawings for junction 25) is the M83. The drawing is a Corporation/Fairclough document. It is shown on the projected sections of the junction between the Clyde Tunnel Expressway and the South-Link Motorway.

Well that is very interesting - and not something I've managed to turn up in all this time! Who did you speak to? And why?

[stu20_ml2]

The Maryhill Motorway was indeed intended as the M81, the north link the M82 and the south link/east link the M83. These numbers come directly from interviews I have conducted with one of the Highway Plan lead designers/later directors of Scott Wilson. As an aside the only number to ever officially make it onto a construction drawing/document (the Gantry/local road sign drawings for junction 25) is the M83. The drawing is a Corporation/Fairclough document. It is shown on the projected sections of the junction between the Clyde Tunnel Expressway and the South-Link Motorway.

Well that is very interesting - and not something I've managed to turn up in all this time! Who did you speak to? And why?

John M Cullen - author of the Glasgows Motorways book. He is a good friend of mine too now. He, along with Roy Hodgen and the team wrote the entire Highway Plan for Glasgow - aswell as provided input into the later Greater Glasgow Transport Study. They also advised the County of Lanark and the Burgh of Motherwell and Wishaw on their traffic plans. I am developing my own website into the motorways and trunk roads of the former Strathclyde Regional area as well as into the development of Citrac and Nadics. I also completed a dissertation on the subject of Glasgows Motorways recently and am now carrying it forward in to postgraduate studies.
I also work with Amey here so get a lot of inside information that way. I have managed to source myself copies of the Highway Plan and of all the associated reports and studies on the Maryhill, Ayr, and South/East flanks. Its been a long time researching.
Hope that helps!

[Chris5156]

The Maryhill Motorway was indeed intended as the M81, the north link the M82 and the south link/east link the M83. These numbers come directly from interviews I have conducted with one of the Highway Plan lead designers/later directors of Scott Wilson. As an aside the only number to ever officially make it onto a construction drawing/document (the Gantry/local road sign drawings for junction 25) is the M83. The drawing is a Corporation/Fairclough document. It is shown on the projected sections of the junction between the Clyde Tunnel Expressway and the South-Link Motorway.

Well that is very interesting - and not something I've managed to turn up in all this time! Who did you speak to? And why?

John M Cullen - author of the Glasgows Motorways book. He is a good friend of mine too now. He, along with Roy Hodgen and the team wrote the entire Highway Plan for Glasgow - aswell as provided input into the later Greater Glasgow Transport Study. They also advised the County of Lanark and the Burgh of Motherwell and Wishaw on their traffic plans. I am developing my own website into the motorways and trunk roads of the former Strathclyde Regional area as well as into the development of Citrac and Nadics. I also completed a dissertation on the subject of Glasgows Motorways recently and am now carrying it forward in to postgraduate studies.
I also work with Amey here so get a lot of inside information that way. I have managed to source myself copies of the Highway Plan and of all the associated reports and studies on the Maryhill, Ayr, and South/East flanks. Its been a long time researching.
Hope that helps!

Your OWN COPIES of those? Crikey. I am somewhere beyond jealous. I saw them both in the Mitchell in Glasgow and have since gone back for further details at the National Archives. A Highway Plan for Glasgow is particularly lovely - with that colour plate at the front, all the sketches by (IIRC) Alexander Bell, the engineering plans of each route... gorgeous.

I look forward to seeing your website when you get it done - my own potted history, with the routes plotted into Google Maps, is here.

[GrahamP]

The Maryhill Motorway was indeed intended as the M81, the north link the M82 and the south link/east link the M83. These numbers come directly from interviews I have conducted with one of the Highway Plan lead designers/later directors of Scott Wilson. As an aside the only number to ever officially make it onto a construction drawing/document (the Gantry/local road sign drawings for junction 25) is the M83. The drawing is a Corporation/Fairclough document. It is shown on the projected sections of the junction between the Clyde Tunnel Expressway and the South-Link Motorway.

Really? Was this before the decision to give Scots motorways the same number as the road they bypass? (Or was the South/East link going to be extended North West to somewhere beyond Tarbet?)

[wrinkly]

Was there ever a decision as such to give Scottish motorways the number of the road they bypassed, or did it just happen by accident?

It seems to me that most Scottish rural/trunk motorways, as distinct from motorways in the Glasgow plan, sort of grew gradually out of plans for AP bypasses. What was going on in the Glasgow plan might have been quite separate from that process and driven by a quite different way of thinking.

[si404]

I think the M73 is case in point - the Hamilton-Cumbernauld motorway was much more along the line of the A73, but didn't get the number.

[Bryn666]

I would suggest it happened by accident, as the M73 isn't following the rules, and there's nonsense like the A823(M).

Given that the majority of the Scottish network shadows A roads, it's logical to have numbered motorways in that manner.

No, I won't entertain the question of 'why is the M5 called M5 then'. The Scottish network is by and large a series of very close bypasses, whereas the English network is an extra network to complement the existing.

Take the M90 - it bypasses the old A90.
The M1 - it was built to bypass the A5, A6, A41, A50, etc, etc before returning to the A1...

[GrahamP]

...and the M73 bypasses the A73 - they both link the A80 to the A/M74; it merely takes a more Westerly line thus massively reducing the length required.

[wrinkly]

In Hansard in the early 1960s, ministers often referred to Scottish motorways by the corresponding A road numbers, e.g. here in May 1963, where sections of M8, M9 and M74 are referred to as A8, A9 and A74 - the M73 is "A.74/A.80 New Link".

No Scottish M (or A(M)) numbers are mentioned until December 1963, when M8, M9 and M74 are first mentioned.

M73, M90 and A8(M) are first mentioned in 1964, but M77 and M80 not for several more years.

Even after the M numbers had appeared, sections of motorway were still sometimes referred to by A road numbers.

[Steven]

I've looked for this information in the National Archives of Scotland, and come up with a big fat blank, other than the kind of information mentioned such as "A.74/A.80 New Link". There isn't good enough indexing of documents there to easily find the reams and reams that you get in Kew about the England & Wales system.

[stu20_ml2]

The old Scottish Development Department were most definitely the driving force in the numbering of the Scottish Motorways - although in the case of the Highway Plan Glasgow Corporation had more influence - mainly because Government funding came later and because this network was seen as the "Corporations". Hence the no junction numbers between Newhouse and Hillington - that section was also "owned" by Glasgow until April 96 when it was trunked.

For the Renfrewshire and Lanarkshire motorways the County Councils were the lead authority on taking the schemes forward and the number was just assumed to be taken as the road being bypassed.

As for the M73 getting that number over the Hamilton-Cumbernauld route - well that might be as simple a case as it not being proposed until 1967 in the Greater Glasgow Plan - the M73 was already committed by then.

Oh and some of the construction drawings for the present M74 junction six show the A723 as the M723 and A723(M) - these drawings are dated 1968 and were produced on completion of the M74.

Everyone on here always seems to ask about why junction 6 is so extensive - there is a simple reason and that is politics. Hamilton and Motherwell were the principal towns and demanded a fully free flow junction. The later Hamilton-Cumbernauld proposals seems to conveniently tap into that. We have to bear in mind as well that the A723 frequently flooded and was in reasonably poor condition before the M74 was built. The scheme was just another excuse to upgrade it to something better.

[wrinkly]

Hence the no junction numbers between Newhouse and Hillington - that section was also "owned" by Glasgow

Until rileyrob started this thread I'd completely forgotten that that situation with the M8 junction numbers had ever existed. I'm amazed the SDD can have been so stubborn as to have just ignored the Glasgow section and left it out of the numbering, and then resumed its own system at Hillington.

until April 96 when it was trunked.

At least the M8 junction numbering didn't have to wait quite that long to be fixed. It's OK in my 1986 street atlas.

But then also in 1986, when the M74 junction numbering was reversed to allow for the first southern extension, they botched that by not leaving enough numbers at the city end!

And there's another botch on the M80!

[wrinkly]

Further to the discussion upthread about the temporary M8/A8 junction between Renfrew and Bishopton, it seems a permanent junction has been proposed there, in connection with the redevelopment of the Royal Ordnance site for housing.

I haven't checked any further to see whether it was approved.

[rileyrob]

I haven't been aware of any sign of preparation / construction at this location, but it is a couple of weeks since I was last there, and I wasn't actually looking for anything.

[wrinkly]

The planning application was from two or three years ago. Most likely the developers can't afford to build the houses right now.

[wrinkly]

I've found the old 1" map of Glasgow that I mentioned near the start of the thread. Major roads revised 1968.

The only completed motorways shown are

(1) Renfrew bypass (labelled as M8, not A8(M)),

(2) the eastern half of the northern flank of the inner ring road.

The only motorways shown as under construction are the Maryville interchange and the M74 from Maryville to the edge of the map.

[Edit: No projected motorways are shown, but then, they never were on 1", IIRC.]

No junction numbers are shown. At what is now J26, the flyover over the roundabout exists, but leads from the Renfrew bypass to the A8. The additional roundabout just north of the GS roundabout didn't exist. The Braehead spur is a much more recent addition.

The bit of A8 Renfrew Road bypassed by J26, between where the additional roundabout now is and the east end of the junction, is shown as a minor road ("white road").

Townhead looks like a half-diamond, with the mainline running from the little bit of motorway that existed there to Alexandra Parade A8.

[wrinkly]

I said, a few posts up:

It seems to me that most Scottish rural/trunk motorways, as distinct from motorways in the Glasgow plan, sort of grew gradually out of plans for AP bypasses.

I've found an example of this I didn't know before. The whole of the Renfrew bypass was built at the same time, opening in March 1968, but it seems the western half was planned as an AP road until a very late stage. The orders to reclassify it as a motorway were not even published in draft until July 1967, when it must have been already more than half way through construction.

I discovered this from my researches in the Edinburgh Gazette, which are part of a project to compile a list of corrections to the chronological list of opening dates on the Motorway Archive site. I started with motorways in Scotland, and I've nearly finished that. When I have, I'll send them to the Motorway Archive and start on England and Wales.

[stu20_ml2]

I said, a few posts up:

It seems to me that most Scottish rural/trunk motorways, as distinct from motorways in the Glasgow plan, sort of grew gradually out of plans for AP bypasses.

I've found an example of this I didn't know before. The whole of the Renfrew bypass was built at the same time, opening in March 1968, but it seems the western half was planned as an AP road until a very late stage. The orders to reclassify it as a motorway were not even published in draft until July 1967, when it must have been already more than half way through construction.

I discovered this from my researches in the Edinburgh Gazette, which are part of a project to compile a list of corrections to the chronological list of opening dates on the Motorway Archive site. I started with motorways in Scotland, and I've nearly finished that. When I have, I'll send them to the Motorway Archive and start on England and Wales.

It was originally intended that the motorway would continue along the line of the Johnstone Bypass with dual carriageway to Bishopton branching off - some lobbying by local politicians (at the County who were the scheme designer - SDD only part funded)at the time saw the motorway adopted instead. Of course the Johnstone bypass in its current form didnt come along til much later than initially planned!

[wrinkly]

I find it quite flabbergasting that the scheme for the entire northern and western flanks of the M8 in Glasgow, J15-20 inclusive, took only five months from publication to confirmation in 1967-8 - which presumably means there were no major objections!

[Erath]

Absolutely intriguing stuff. As an aside, it's interesting to see what else has changed in the way of classified roads in Glasgow.

There's a B760 following Govan Road exactly, and now I can see why Govan Road has such a strange shape - there used to be a dock in the way! Paisley Road West is still the A737 (it's A761 nowadays), B791 in Inchinnan is news to me, there's an A754 that's now the A736, and most surprisngly the A82 makes it all the way to the A814 Argyle Street (and at some point presumably joins the A77 end-on). The A804 doesn't exist in any form I can make it out on the map.

That Denniston junction (modern day J14) is intriguing stuff. I'm off to take a closer look at some modern maps.