Jim Murphy has said he will commit to delivering a Glasgow crossrail scheme in Labour's manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood elections.
Scottish party leader Mr Murphy says he wants to use the Scottish Parliament's new borrowing powers to bring forward the "missing link" in Glasgow's rail infrastructure.
The crossrail would enable services from the north and east of Scotland to continue through Glasgow to the West and South.
Mr Murphy will tell delegates at the Core Cities Devolution Summit in Glasgow today that "long-delayed" infrastructure projects have been a subject of frustration in Scotland.
He will say: "Crossrail would bring Scotland together, linking north, south, east and west. It would see Scotland finally have a unified rail network service.
"It would offer better transport for Glaswegians, more capacity on a rail network creaking at the seams and more jobs for the East of the city.
"For too long our cities have been held back by a lack of ambition, a lack of funding and a lack of freedom."
The Scottish Labour leader will also use his speech to announce the development of a Scottish Cities Strategy.
Mr Murphy has asked the Labour leaders of Glasgow and Edinburgh City Councils to work on the project and report back later in the year.
He is expected to say: "The city we meet in shows what is possible with a strategic focus on the particular challenges a city faces.
"The decision of the then UK Labour Government to write off the debilitating housing debt of Glasgow freed up the council to plan for the long term.
"Even under the current Conservative government, Labour Glasgow has been able to win a £1 billion City Deal that opens up investment in infrastructure and economic growth. City Deals for Scotland's other cities should follow.
"I want to turn our twin cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow into the economic powerhouse it should be, an economic hub to rival London, Greater Manchester and the other city regions across the UK
"It is time, to borrow from the motto of this great city, to let our cities flourish."
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