r/Glasgow Tools

From what I heard of their statements on the report, they set out to select the most achievable projects - the ones that are most affordable and likely to gain political support. We have to start somewhere, and honestly I'd be grateful if the majority of these suggestions were to come to pass. It doesn't need to be about starting with a massive new costly subway system. We have lower level issues (bus service fragmentation, lack of rail-type services in large areas of the city despite an increasing dependence on rail, bottlenecks at the main stations which are at capacity...). The report has answers for these issues, and I'm thankful for that.

There's problems with the idea of expanding the subway system anyway.

Our subway circle is the only one of its kind in the world that uses a 4ft track gauge (width). This is mostly cause it was built before a standard track style was settled on across the world.

Because of this, we cant just go out to train manufacturers and buy train fleets ready made. They have to be specially designed for our specifications. Same for tracks/tunnel infrastructure. Everything has to be tailor-designed, vastly increasing the costs beyond that faced by other cities.

Doesn't mean it's impossible to expand. Just means you have a (very) costly decision to make:

1. Spend higher than normal costs on new infrastructure and fleets, so committing to huge long term costs for any future expansions and ongoing maintenance.

2. Scrap everything and rebuild the old circle using standard gauge tracks, making it possible to buy off the shelf in future, and opening up possibilities for more affordable route expansions. This obv has humongous costs up front. Also puts the subway out of commission for years during a refit.

3. Do a mix of old and new subway systems. This is massively costly cause you're essentially running two parallel metro systems in one city.

For this reason, a tram is realistically way more cost effective no matter what subway solution you settled on in the end.