Renewed calls have been made for the Glasgow Subway to extend its Sunday operating hours to coincide with major events in the city.
It comes after a tweet reminding concertgoers heading to see Arctic Monkeys at Bellahouston Park on Sunday that no services would be operating when the event finished was met with widespread backlash online.
While services on the Glasgow Subway run from 6.30am to 11.40pm from Monday to Saturday, services run from 10am to 18.12pm on Sundays.
The last service towards the city centre from the nearby Ibrox station for the 35,000-strong crowd who attended the concert departed at 5:52pm - over five hours before the event finished and around three hours before Arctic Monkeys even took to the stage.
READ MORE: Glasgow Subway service disrupted one in every five days in 2022
Glasgow Subway’s tweet about its Sunday operating hours has received over 1.9 million views since being posted on Friday of last week, attracting criticism from locals, politicians and campaign groups alike.
Responding to the tweet, one local dubbed the underground network “the last bastion of Scottish Sabbatarianism” while another complained that it is “somehow still run like it’s Sunday in the 1970s”.
A third wrote: "What a shambles. Glasgow doesn't deserve to hold big events."
New Glasgow Society, which promotes and encourages the conservation and creation of the best old and new architecture in Glasgow, said Glasgow Subway’s tweet “summarises the serious lack of enthusiasm in providing the city of Glasgow a better public transport”.
This one tweet just summarises the serious lack of enthusiasm in providing the city of #Glasgow a better public transport. People are unhappy with the “I will do the minimal” attitude presented here. Time for a change?@transcotland @GetGlesgaMoving https://t.co/514oEVlx02
— New Glasgow Society (@newglasgowsoc) June 25, 2023
Glasgow Labour MSP Paul Sweeney labelled Glasgow’s public transport system “primitive” while calling for the Subway network to “routinely extend Sunday operating hours for major events”.
He told The Herald: “It’s embarrassing that Scotland’s biggest city, and the only city in the country with a subway system, is incapable of running a service beyond 6pm on a Sunday. We know that there is demand for an increase in services, particularly when there are large events on in the city, and to have a blanket closure at 6pm on a Sunday is both counterproductive and amateurish.
“The subway’s modernisation programme has been ongoing for over a decade, and the new driverless trains are delayed despite repeated assurances that they would be delivered on time. If Glasgow has any intention, as the leader of Glasgow City Council continually espouses, to be a major European city that rivals the likes of Barcelona, the bare minimum people expect is an efficient and fully functioning public transport system.
READ MORE: Glasgow to London trains disrupted due to Lake District incident
“Following the introduction of that new rolling stock, a plan should be brought forward to show a pathway to running subway services on a 24-hour basis, primarily at weekends or when there are large scale events taking place in the city. If maintenance works are required, we can run services on either the inner or outer circle depending on where the maintenance is taking place.
"The city has become increasingly hostile to taxi services through the ham-fisted implementation of the LEZ and while I would obviously prefer that issue was rectified, if that is not going to happen then the least we can do is provide alternative modes of transport to and from the city centre.”
Glasgow Subway’s operating hours were extended to 10pm on Sundays on two weekends while the city hosted the COP26 climate conference in November 2021, sparking calls for the temporary timetable to be made permanent.
An online petition set up by a former University of Glasgow student to ‘extend Glasgow Subway opening hours beyond COP26’ received over 5,000 signatures.
Responding to the backlash over the tweet, Glasgow Subway operator Scottish Passenger Transport (SPT) said it intends to review the network’s operating hours in the future.
A SPT spokesperson told The Herald: “Subway endeavours to support various events in the city throughout the year and will extend services if at all possible.
“The early close on Sunday evening is crucial as allows for essential maintenance and for more intensive work from the modernisation programme to be complete.
“We have already stated our intention to review Subway operating hours once the Subway modernisation programme is complete.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel