January 23 2020

Glasgow City Council is pursuing plans to part-pedestrianise George Square by closing off its east and west sides to all vehicles while banning private cars from arterial routes to the north and south during the day.
 
This would grant buses, taxis and cyclists continued access to the square at all hours.
 
A first step toward improving the square will take place this summer with the removal of all surface parking bays by June.
 
Final designs have not yet been prepared for the new-look square but councillors are thought to favour proceeding with a range of temporary improvements as a stop-gap measure before undertaking a permanent makeover from 2023 as part of its Avenues project.

A council report stated: “The wider regeneration strategy for Glasgow city centre presents various opportunities for George Square which forms a pivotal element of the developing City Centre Strategy. Accordingly, this project is not being developed in isolation. There is a clear opportunity to integrate the George Square design brief with that of the adjacent streets which will benefit from City Deal investment. Both George Street and St Vincent Street are part of the Avenues programme, and design work is due to commence late 2020.”

The changes follow a period of consultation undertaken by the council in partnership with Icecream Architecture which drew over 2,000 responses, the majority of which favoured tighter restrictions on traffic and improved public realm.

6 Comments

#1 Posted by spike on 24 Jan 2020 at 21:26 PM

It would be good, where possible, to minimise traffic so the square accommodates pedestrians as much as possible

#2 Posted by Charlie_ on 25 Jan 2020 at 11:18 AM

It would be good, if possible, to ship some decent stone paving and a few trees back to the 1990s and save ourselves these decades of pointless consultations.

#3 Posted by modernish on 27 Jan 2020 at 12:21 PM

It would be good, and honest, to admit that there is no way to create 'continuity between queen street station and George square' whilst a bloody busy road West George Street/George Street) separates them. There's no point noting it on a drawing if there's no way to achieve it

#4 Posted by Auntie Nairn on 27 Jan 2020 at 12:28 PM

What #3 said!

#5 Posted by Hilloch on 27 Jan 2020 at 14:37 PM

Love the leftover road lane management arrows on the visualisations, giving the game away on who is leading on this design? Why do I get the feeling that GCC city development approach will not show necessary and vital improvements for anyone other than car users until the GCC traffic engineers are reigned in from their pivotal position as agenda setters?

#6 Posted by Malcolm on 8 Feb 2020 at 15:06 PM

All this will do is create more pollution as cars have to snake around maze like streets, with multiple lights, to get from one end of the city centre to another. Also what is the point of pedestrianising if buses and taxis still use the N and S sides of the square. People still have to look out for traffic and use crossings.
Personally I liked the square having a sort of Island feeling to it.
This is just so the council can have more space to rent out to events companies.

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