A huge stride towards a cleaner Glasgow
SOMETHING hugely significant occurred in Glasgow this week. Something momentous not just for municipal politics in this city or indeed Scotland but for all our efforts in building a sustainable future. All parties represented on Glasgow City Centre agreed on the need for unprecedented action to tackle emissions and congestion and their impact on public health and quality of our city environment. Even the Tories, clearly aware this will irk some of their natural constituencies, are on side. The status quo on Glasgow’s roads and streets is no longer an option. People are our priority.
For more than40 years the importance afforded to pollution and traffic management within the city had been way down the list of priorities for politicians running Glasgow. That clearly changed last May when the new SNP administration signalled from the outset that transport, health and sustainability were overlapping priorities which would also underpin much of what we do. Council leader Susan Aitken has had a series of fruitful conversations with public transport operators to improve the offer to our citizens. In a city with the lowest car ownership rates in the UK this is crucial for economic inclusion and Glasgow’s vitality.
We have also launched the Connectivity Commission, a highlevel and independent body to consider options on transport, congestion, streetscapes, public realm and ultimately how the city moves. They will make initial findings public as early as the summer.
Anyone around the Sauchiehall Street area will see the work under way for our City Avenues project, a scheme designed to change the look, feel and relationship our citizens have with our major thoroughfares. And we are tremendously proud that our efforts to ensure Glasgow is home to Scotland’s first Low Emissions Zone (LEZ) paid off and that begins next
We need more than a big idea. Cleaner air is more pressing than traffic management
year. None of these things are a panacea but part of a bigger picture, milestones to a cleaner, healthier, more breathable city.
This week, as more detail of how the LEZ was published, there was some unhappiness from, on one side, environmental campaigners claiming it wasn’t radical enough, and on the other, some business and transport operators saying it was too far, too fast. Being in the middle tells me we are in the right place. In the council committee there was also a push by opposition councillors to consider congestion charging within the city in the next couple of years.
We clearly want to get to the same place. Our route to a more peoplefriendly city is as important as the destination and my priority is that we don’t jeopardise shared goals with a wrong turn. We need only look to Edinburgh where conversations about air quality revert quickly to their failed congestion scheme. We need more than a big idea. Cleaner air is more pressing than traffic management.
I subscribe to evidence-based policy and, on top of the
Connectivity Commission’s work, believe congestion charging merits a place at any discussion table. But we need to know who would be charged and from where? Is this about all of Glasgow or just the city centre, about our residents or those who come into the city? How much initial outlay for our chosen scheme? (As much as £150m for year-one according to a recent study.)
To get to where we want to go we need to take everyone with us. What is good for citizens’ health should be good for economic growth. Our haste mustn’t throw up unwanted impacts such as punishing our low-income citizens with older vehicles by removing their lifelines. All in all, I look back on this week as one where we took a massive stride towards a cleaner Glasgow.
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