r/Glasgow Tools

Title
Author	eenbiertje
Comment	There have been a lot of extension plans drawn up over the last 100 years or so. Most of them involved a bit of tinkering with the existing existing heavy-rail infrastructure, making new subway lines of what already were suburban rail lines. Connecting them with tunnels here and there as needed. The idea of a full-on new eastern circle route, with new tunnels and stations across the east end, has been around since the 1940s too. The fundamental reason no expansion of any type has happened is that national funding priorities changed drastically in the mid-20th century, and as subway ridership fell off a cliff in the 1960s, the business case for any expansion evaporated too. The subway peaked at an average of 37 million journeys per year between 1948-51. By 1960 this had fallen to 28 million, and 17 million by 1970. (Today it hovers around 12 million journeys per year.) Of course, this didn't happen by chance - it coincided with around 50 years of national transportation and planning policy focused squarely on the private car. Billions spent on road upgrades, motorways, new roads. The city reconfigured to suit vehicles in a huge range of respects. The city was designed for driving in, and so, that's what people did. Tram, trolley bus and subway ridership collapsed. Added to this, as Glasgow de-densified with people moved out to new housing estates and new towns further afield, the suburban rail network ended up becoming even more essential than before. Any previous plans to convert suburban rail lines into subway lines, would mean sacrificing long distance services for something better suited to inner-city, rapid transit. So, these individual "line conversion" ideas simply had no appeal any more.
Reddit Link	https://www.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/rg3jis/125_years_of_the_glasgow_subway_4th_oldest/hoi2oxw/
Created	Tue 14th Dec 2021 12:05pm
Status	normal ()

There have been a lot of extension plans drawn up over the last 100 years or so. Most of them involved a bit of tinkering with the existing existing heavy-rail infrastructure, making new subway lines of what already were suburban rail lines. Connecting them with tunnels here and there as needed. The idea of a full-on new eastern circle route, with new tunnels and stations across the east end, has been around since the 1940s too.

The fundamental reason no expansion of any type has happened is that national funding priorities changed drastically in the mid-20th century, and as subway ridership fell off a cliff in the 1960s, the business case for any expansion evaporated too.

The subway peaked at an average of 37 million journeys per year between 1948-51. By 1960 this had fallen to 28 million, and 17 million by 1970. (Today it hovers around 12 million journeys per year.) Of course, this didn't happen by chance - it coincided with around 50 years of national transportation and planning policy focused squarely on the private car. Billions spent on road upgrades, motorways, new roads. The city reconfigured to suit vehicles in a huge range of respects. The city was designed for driving in, and so, that's what people did. Tram, trolley bus and subway ridership collapsed.

Added to this, as Glasgow de-densified with people moved out to new housing estates and new towns further afield, the suburban rail network ended up becoming even more essential than before. Any previous plans to convert suburban rail lines into subway lines, would mean sacrificing long distance services for something better suited to inner-city, rapid transit. So, these individual "line conversion" ideas simply had no appeal any more.