Glasgow ‘street in the sky’ to link Sighthill with George Square
November 22 2018
Glasgow City Council is preparing to file a planning application to create a new pedestrian and cycle link spanning the M8 to better connect communities to the north with the city centre.
Dubbed a ‘Street in the Sky’ the walkway will reduce walk times between Sighthill and George Square to just 15 minutes, with new landscaping further enhancing the attractiveness of the north/south connection.
Designed by Jacobs the bridge is a crucial element in the delivery of the £250m Sighthill Transformational Regeneration Area and is expected to commence construction by mid-2019 for completion by the following summer.
Stretching 58m across the road below the hourglass form link will take the form of a steel box girder with a reinforced concrete composite deck slab, a solution which will require minimal ongoing maintenance.
Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, commented: “For far too long, neighbourhoods just on the periphery of the city centre have been forgotten or abandoned. Sighthill has typified this neglect, cut off from the heart of the city by the M8.
“If we are serious about building sustainable, balanced and inclusive communities we need to expand how we think of the city centre, to incorporate those communities on its fringes. The new bridge will be more than just a crossing over the M8 – it will be an emblem of the new Sighthill, connecting it into wider city life and helping revitalise North Glasgow.”
Upon completion Sighthill will include its own school, a separate road bridge over the Glasgow-Edinburgh main line and a 'canal terrace' at Pinkston Basin.
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12 Comments
Just an excuse to build over Sighthill Park and cut down hundreds of mature trees.
Then replace it with a multitude of saplings and a warren of big verges and claim it is a linear park.
It is city centre expansion rather than regeneration.
As for the bridge, it has been withdrawn from tendering by GCC in early summer, putting this on hold and redesign.
Funny thing is that this will connect one no-go area with another, which is either a genius idea kickstarting the trend or utter stupidity and waste of public money.
Just make sure the bridge could be drawn overnight in case of neds back in the area :)
If this is in the sky then the sky has fallen, which is rarely seen as anything other than a disaster.
It doesn't carry cars because it doesn't need to. It's 15mins to the city centre, there's a southbound A road right next to it and they rightly want to promote walking and cycling.
Either you want to regenerate the post-industrial areas of Glasgow, or you don't. We can debate the aesthetic merits of the architecture, but I can't believe the negativity towards a project trying to inject life into an area as decimated by decline as the north of Glasgow. This is progress, and ambitious. Let's applaud it.
Maybe you don't like the design and that aspect can be up for discussion but the existing bridge is poor quality, doesn't encourage movement or accessibility for those who aren't physically abled and you're never going to join the city up unless these types of connects exist.
I especially like the landscaping proposals working in together the existing canal. Canals are an attractive feature everywhere else in the world, so why not Glasgow? It minds me slightly of the Helix Park in Glasgow which has been a great hit especially in the summer.
City centre friendly both in design and location as Sighthill Park is obliterated and covered over in concrete.
95% of the existing housing units have been demolished -- where did the existing population go and who will replace them?
Land grab to push the existing tenants further out into the sticks and replace them with a more affluent / middle income customer base.
The only thing missing is an avenue to take the lycra wearing cycling hipsters straight onto Sauchiehall Street.
Plus the bridge is so bad BoJo wouldnt have had the brass neck to put it forward.
can't denounce it as a no go area then attack plans to... make it not that.
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2000 tonnes of concrete needed to build it -- so much for its carbon footprint.
410 tonnes of steel for a 58M span ...
For a pedestrian bridge.
Not just an architectural ego trip, a political ego trip but the structural engineers are on the glue as well.
All this sort of redevelopment does is generate public sector ridicule.