PLANS to overhaul Glasgow's Subway will be backed by £246 million of Scottish Government funding, ensuring automated trains can be introduced to a rejuvenated network within five years.
In an announcement that appeared to surprise Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), which operates the 115-year-old system, Infrastructure Secretary Alex Neil said he would provide the bulk of the £287.5m needed to fund the modernisation programme. The remaining £41.5m will be provided by SPT.
Ministers had committed to underwriting SPT borrowing ahead of the 2011 Holyrood election to ensure work could begin on the modernisation programme – the first since the world's third-oldest subway was re-fitted in 1979 – and yesterday's announcement will allow tendering for major contracts to go ahead.
A contract to introduce driverless trains and a new signalling system is expected to be awarded within 18 months and is due to be complete by 2017.
Work has started on renewing Hillhead station in the west end, with design work underway for Kelvinhall, Ibrox and Partick.
New ticketing machines are due to be installed and operational by 2013.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article