AS a contributor to the Glasgow Connectivity Commission, I was delighted to read in its report ("Glasgow's £10 billion Metro transport Revolution unveiled", The Herald, April 29) that the route, destinations, and the project phasing of the proposed Metro system appear to be based on those proposed by my brother and I for a high-speed monorail link from Glasgow Airport to Glasgow Central Station in Glasgow and the "Paisley Shuttle" spur Line to Paisley Gilmour Street. This proposal was put in the public domain on March 5, 2016 via our website and was the subject of a two-page spread in the Herald on May 30, 2016.
However I am still of the opinion, that providing these services by means of a monorail or an elevated light rail transit (LTR) is a much preferred solution. It has minimum impact on or from other modes of road transport, both during construction and operation. Because it is a segregated system it can be operated autonomously, eradicating driver error, allowing much faster transit times and a considerable reduction in operating costs. The cost of construction would be less than a grade-level Metro which on the road sections through Linthouse, Govan and Plantation would require the relocation and protection of underground services.
The Edinburgh tram system is a salutary lesson on the problems and cost overruns that services relocation brings to Metro projects. The commission has put a price tag on its overall proposal of £10 billion to be spread over a period of 20 years, giving an annual spend of £500 million. With a projected budget of circa £500m and an anticipated completion within four years the Clyde Monorail proposal would fall well within the financial constraints envisaged within the Connectivity Commission's Report. Surely Glasgow deserves a transport system from its airport that is innovative, exciting and upstages what is on offer from our staid eastern neighbour.
Jim Beckett,
Director, Clyde Monorail Limited,
58 Sandholes Road,
Brookfield,
Johnstone.
I NOTE your report and subsequent correspondence on the Glasgow Connectivity Commission report.
There has been in the literal sense decades of such visionary proposed changes and developments within the city and its environs in rail provision and improvements. Some have come to pass, eventually, in either intended form or amended.
As far back as 1945 when the fog of war was lifting there was a 50-year City of Glasgow reconstruction plan proposing radical rail changes and in 1949 there followed the Inglis Commission report on electrification of suburban services, one part of which has still to come to pass – namely that of the line to East Kilbride.
Both the city council in its various departmental guises concerning transport and British Railways in whatever named form continued over the ensuing years with aspirations and high hopes that now dwell, one supposes, in dusty archives.
Whither much will come to pass of the latest round is open to debate.
John Macnab,
175 Grahamsdyke Street,
Laurieston,
Falkirk.
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