Will the Woodside Viaduct works ever be completed?

It’s twilight on a cold February evening but in the concrete cocoon of the underpass beneath the Woodside Viaduct, time is meaningless. I’m getting ready to do battle. 

My adversary is approaching from the opposite direction. I’m on the left side of the subway, flanked by a temporary wall which has been erected to separate pedestrians from the building works ongoing since 2021. My nemesis is one of those pedestrians. When he clocked me coming through, his path diverted towards me, edging closer and closer. As we draw level, it becomes clear there is no space left and we collide, leaving me wedged for an uncomfortable moment between the temporary wall and the man’s broad shoulders.

To be honest, I can see it from his perspective. You see, I haven’t totally followed the instructions of many signs posted at the entrance of the underpass. Cyclists are supposed to dismount. I have sort of dismounted from my bike; travelling at walking speed but with my right foot on the left pedal, scooting. He’s making a point. It’s just one of many hostile interactions the tunnel has seen in recent years as a seemingly infinite misery-go-round of scaffolding, drilling and people being squeezed together has developed.

The underpass has become a pinchpoint. Once a bustling active travel route  stretching from Garscube Road into town, the gradual expansion of maintenance works being done to the motorway overhead has transformed this thoroughfare into a warren of makeshift barriers and hoardings. It’s been four years since the project to fix this part of the M8 began. Since then, it’s ballooned into one of the most complex remedial endeavours in Scotland with over £100million already spent, The Bell can reveal. The works are bringing misery to those travelling on the M8, but also those below it in Glasgow, from local residents to those passing through on foot, two wheels or four. So: when will it end?