DO YOU remember…when the M8 officially opened?

This week marks the 58th anniversary of its grand unveiling on November 20, 1964, by the Minister of State, Edinburgh MP EG Willis.

The first section declared open was a four-mile stretch of the Harthill bypass, but eventually, the M8 - billed as the country’s first ‘real’ motorway and the road that changed Scotland – would stretch 60 miles from Glasgow to Edinburgh and serving Airdrie, Coatbridge, Greenock, Livingston and Paisley.

Glasgow Times:

The M8 encompasses the Kingston Bridge and the Charing Cross Inner Ring Road, a development which would change the nature of Glasgow City Centre forever.

As planners congratulated themselves on providing more mobility for citizens and increased traffic flows, residents despaired over the loss of tenements and shops. Many older Times Past readers often share their memories of the communities transformed by the new road.

According to The Glasgow Story website, a stretch of the M8 east of Gartcraig Bridge is often referred to as the Monkland Motorway, as it was built on the bed of the Monkland Canal.

Glasgow Times:

It states: “The canal was once the most profitable in Scotland, carrying coal, iron, steel, timber and lime from the Coatbridge area to Glasgow, but by 1950 it had been abandoned and presented a health and safety hazard.

“When the demand for a Glasgow-Edinburgh motorway became overwhelming (the first section opened in 1964), the canal provided a natural route through the east end of the city. The canal was infilled in 1972, and this section of the M8 opened a few years later.”

The last part of the M8 within Glasgow – apart from a six mile stretch between Baillieston and Newhouse - was completed in 1980, until almost 30 years later, when, in 2017, that short gap was eventually finished as part of a massive £500m programme of works on the M8, M73 and M74.

Glasgow Times:

Many myths surrounding the construction of the M8 have persisted over the decades - including the rather grisly rumour that several underworld crime figures who disappeared in the 60s were offed and buried within the Kingston Bridge foundations.