M8 Bridge to Nowhere

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The bridge to nowhere is a nickname given to two unfinished bridges over the M8 motorway in Glasgow. Both attracted a degree of notoriety as examples of the incompleteness of the Glasgow Inner Ring Road; one has since been converted to an office block and the other remains incomplete and is the subject of a National Lottery bid to complete it.

[edit] Sauchiehall Street bridge

The Sauchiehall Street bridge to nowhere

The more famous bridge to nowhere is adjacent to the crossing of Sauchiehall Street, one of Glasgow's main shopping streets, and was ostensibly designed either to allow for an expansion of Sauchiehall street to a major traffic thoroughfare with four lanes, or to allow a future pedestrian walkway parallel to the street to continue over the M8 road junction.

Connections at either end of the bridge were never completed, and it sat unused for years, attracting much notoriety at a time when the entire M8 construction project was the subject of very divided public opinion, until an office block was built on top of the bridge structure in the mid-1990s.

[edit] Anderston footbridge

The Anderston footbridge (some 1km south of the Sauchiehall Street bridge) was originally planned as the main pedestrian connection between Glasgow city centre and the Anderston district, where a large enclosed shopping centre was under construction. The eastern end of the bridge was planned to link into an elevated shopping centre, which was never built, and the bridge has ended abruptly some 40 feet above a car park ever since.

As a highly visible structure, it became widely known as the 'Bridge to Nowhere' after the Sauchiehall Street bridge was built on and lost its bridge-like appearance.

A current proposal by charity Sustrans, called Connect2, aims to finish the construction, as well as connecting the half-finished bridge with a second one over the Clydeside Expressway. This aims to improve pedestrian and cycle access in central Glasgow, by introducing a pedestrian and cycle crossing between the former Glasgow docks and the city centre.

The project has received National Lottery funding after being successful in a public vote. A total of £50 million has been awarded to Sustrans for this and a number of other projects nationwide to expand the network of publicly accessible cycle and footways.