Glasgow Airport Metro system gets council leader approval

[ld0595]

Progress has been made on the link between Glasgow airport and Paisley Gilmour Street with funding being agreed for the project. Although in isolation the link between Paisley and the airport seems like a white elephant, wider plans would hopefully extend the line to Renfrew, Braehead QEU hospital and beyond.

I do hope this is the start of wider metro/light rail system for Glasgow. I attended a lecture earlier this year by the Glasgow Connectivity Commission who developed proposals for a Glasgow Metro, which was quite interesting. Their report can be found here: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=45064. A lot of things are ambitious, but by no means impossible.

I won't hold my breath that this will progress much further, but we can always hope.

The full article can be seen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-51008481

Plans for a metro link for Glasgow Airport have been agreed by council leaders in Glasgow and Renfrewshire.

The first phase of the proposed Glasgow Metro would link Paisley Gilmour Street train station and Glasgow airport, before extending further east.

The announcement came ahead of a conference on the state of the economy and infrastructure in Glasgow.

An airport rail link has been promised for years with different proposals approved and later scrapped.

The Glasgow Metro was first proposed by a commission tasked with improving the city's infrastructure in April last year.

Now the leader of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken, has said the metro's first phase will be between the airport and Paisley Gilmour Street train station.

Both of these sites are within Renfrewshire Council, and Cllr Aitken said the leaders of both councils have agreed funding for the project, although the support of the councils' members will have to be secured before work can begin.

Note: I hope this was the right section of the forum to post this in! Happy for this to be moved to the Infrastructure section if more appropriate.

 

[Am Broc]

Are there any specific papers or details on the Paisley-Airport tram proposal? I’ve done a bit of Googling but I can’t find much.

I hope this goes ahead. The distance between Paisley Gilmour Street and the airport is only just over a mile so it doesn’t seem very viable unless it’s expanded further in the shortish term.

 

[radamfi]

Luton airport are building something similar so it doesn't sound out of the ordinary.

 

[edwin_m]

Luton airport are building something similar so it doesn't sound out of the ordinary.

Luton Airport is a cable-hauled peoplemover which is essentially a shuttle technology for fairly short distances. They could probably do something similar at Glasgow but from what I can gather they are looking for the first phase of a much larger Metro (tram?) network.

 

[MarkyT]

Luton Airport is a cable-hauled people mover which is essentially a shuttle technology for fairly short distances. They could probably do something similar at Glasgow but from what I can gather they are looking for the first phase of a much larger Metro (tram?) network.

Those Dopplmeyr systems have been used over quite substantial distances, and would certainly be suitable just for a Gilmour St - airport link, but would not be suitable for a wider expanding network with variable characteristics. On Luton I think a guided bus extension would have been more useful; the airport could still have had their own autonomous shuttles on that, also going to the town centre and main station as well as the parkway, and other bus routes could also have had dedicated access to the airport, bypassing general traffic. A similar approach but using light rail tech could apply at Glasgow airport with an automated Paisley shuttle on fully segregated infrastructure forming part of an eventual larger light metro network that could share that same track with manned vehicles going along the south bank of the Clyde and perhaps having some streetside running in Renfrew, say. Elsewhere a similar approach might be considered between Birmingham airport and the HS2 Interchange station, sharing infrastructure with west midlands tram services extended from the south of the city to the airport and HS2 hub.

 

[clc]

I attended a lecture earlier this year by the Glasgow Connectivity Commission who developed proposals for a Glasgow Metro, which was quite interesting.

Did they say which route the Airport line would take between the QEUH and the city centre?

 

[ld0595]

Did they say which route the Airport line would take between the QEUH and the city centre?

Here's an extract from the report (page 29) showing potential metro routes. I can't remember whether they mentioned an exact route in the lecture - it was all very high-level, but I hope this helps.

 

[clc]

Here's an extract from the report (page 29) showing potential metro routes. I can't remember whether they mentioned an exact route in the lecture - it was all very high-level, but I hope this helps.

Thanks. The report talked about converting the Argyle Line to metro but it wasn’t clear if the idea was for the Airport service to use the Argyle Line rather than have it’s own surface line along the Broomielaw to Central Station. I imagine the map is only indicative.

 

[Mag_seven]

Would any people who are travelling from Glasgow city centre seriously consider the option of boarding a train to Gilmour St then having to change onto something else there when there is an already well established through bus service from various pick up points e.g. Queen St Station?

 

[clc]

Would any people who are travelling from Glasgow city centre seriously consider the option of boarding a train to Gilmour St then having to change onto something else there when there is an already well established through bus service from various pick up points e.g. Queen St Station?

The Connectivity Commission recommended that the link should be extended to the city centre, serving a number of major trip generators along the route not currently served by subway or heavy rail including the largest hospital campus in Europe (10,000 employees), and Renfrew, the largest town in Scotland without a rail link. The council agreed with this recommendation and now regards Gilmour St to Airport as an initial phase and is going to commission a feasibility study into building the extension. The Scottish Govt will have to agree to fund and deliver the Airport - City Centre section as an STPR 2 priority but has been making encouraging noises about the project. The fact that the extension would serve the constituencies of the First Minister and Finance Secretary won’t do any harm to its chances of happening.

 

[edwin_m]

Would any people who are travelling from Glasgow city centre seriously consider the option of boarding a train to Gilmour St then having to change onto something else there when there is an already well established through bus service from various pick up points e.g. Queen St Station?

The Connectivity Commission recommended that the link should be extended to the city centre, serving a number of major trip generators along the route not currently served by subway or heavy rail including the largest hospital campus in Europe (10,000 employees), and Renfrew, the largest town in Scotland without a rail link. The council agreed with this recommendation and now regards Gilmour St to Airport as an initial phase and is going to commission a feasibility study into building the extension. The Scottish Govt will have to agree to fund and deliver the Airport - City Centre section as an STPR 2 priority but has been making encouraging noises about the project. The fact that the extension would serve the constituencies of the First Minister and Finance Secretary won’t do any harm to its chances of happening.

The bus is pretty quick when the M8 is moving, and picks/drops at several places in the centre not just Central Station, so any option that involves a change in Paisley is likely to be uncompetitive for journeys between Glasgow and the airport. That was the reason to prefer a through tram-train service a few years ago, now apparently discarded due to capacity conflicts with other actual and proposed train services. With multiple intermediate stops any Metro will be slower between the city and the airport than the tram-train would have been, so must be justified by the other journeys it facilitates. I would guess that the airport bus would continue to operate if this was built, as it does in Edinburgh.

 

[Mag_seven]

The bus is pretty quick when the M8 is moving, and picks/drops at several places in the centre not just Central Station, so any option that involves a change in Paisley is likely to be uncompetitive for journeys between Glasgow and the airport. That was the reason to prefer a through tram-train service a few years ago, now apparently discarded due to capacity conflicts with other actual and proposed train services. With multiple intermediate stops any Metro will be slower between the city and the airport than the tram-train would have been, so must be justified by the other journeys it facilitates. I would guess that the airport bus would continue to operate if this was built, as it does in Edinburgh.

I'd much rather the money was spent on subsidising the fares on the bus link - they are astronomic compared to most other fares in the area.

 

[edwin_m]

I'd much rather the money was spent on subsidising the fares on the bus link - they are astronomic compared to most other fares in the area.

Nearly everywhere with a public transport network linking to an airport charges extra for airport journeys. The policy justification for subsidizing air journeys in that way is questionable, and it's still far cheaper than a taxi.

 

[CM]

Another waste of taxpayers money on a project that isn't needed when there is a perfectly acceptable, fast and frequent bus service from the City Centre to the Airport and there is also a bus service from Gilmour Street to the Airport as well I believe.

 

[clc]

Another waste of taxpayers money on a project that isn't needed when there is a perfectly acceptable, fast and frequent bus service from the City Centre to the Airport and there is also a bus service from Gilmour Street to the Airport as well I believe.

The Airport bus is generally effective at transporting people to and from the city centre (though journey times can be unreliable due to congestion on the M8). However, the Metro would not only handle the end to end journeys but would also serve a corridor containing: a mega-hospital; a huge shopping and leisure complex; Glasgow’s media quarter; a new advanced manufacturing district which will eventually employ 10,000 people; and a rail-free town with a population of 23,000. It would also boost the regeneration of vacant riverside land of which there is no shortage.

 

[CM]

The Airport bus is generally effective at transporting people to and from the city centre (though journey times can be unreliable due to congestion on the M8). However, the Metro would not only handle the end to end journeys but would also serve a corridor containing: a mega-hospital; a huge shopping and leisure complex; Glasgow’s media quarter; a new advanced manufacturing district which will eventually employ 10,000 people; and a rail-free town with a population of 23,000. It would also boost the regeneration of vacant riverside land of which there is no shortage.

I fail to see why Renfrew needs a rail link when it has frequent bus services to the City Centre(most of which also serve the other places you mention) and is also literally minutes away from the M8 Motorway.

 

[Grinner]

I fail to see why Renfrew needs a rail link when it has frequent bus services to the City Centre(most of which also serve the other places you mention) and is also literally minutes away from the M8 Motorway.

I work in Renfrew, and so have on a few occasions caught the bus into Glasgow, and it's always been frustratingly slow.

 

[edwin_m]

Renfrew is probably one of the largest towns in the Glasgow area that doesn't have a train service, and I guess is losing out relative to nearby places for that reason.