Councillors call for greater investment in Glasgow’s cycle lanes

Glasgow councillors will continue to ask the Scottish Government and COSLA for more money to help maintain roads, footways and cycle lanes in the city.

A budget of £21 million has been set aside by the local authority to help keep them in good condition but concerns have been raised about sustaining cycle routes and the amount of damage potholes can do to bikes.

During Thursday’s full council meeting, Labour councillor Robert Mooney advised members that at a meeting on active travel, he was informed that £42 million had been put forward by the Scottish Government to build the cycle lanes but there was no extra money for maintaining them.

Councillor Mooney said: “As you are well aware, roads and cycle lanes are completely different. When there is a pothole in a road, an officer will go out and measure it and if it’s within a certain size they can leave it. But with cycle lanes the smallest abrasion can be fatal to cyclists. I would like to know how much money we have put aside to maintain our cycle lanes to a standard that will keep our cyclists safe.”

SNP councillor Ruairi Kelly said that the budgets allocated to the council helped to plan resurfacing programmes and active winter maintenance schedules.

Councillor Kelly said: “There is a difference between capital money which builds the infrastructure and revenue which then maintains it. The revenue is a total pot that is allocated on a needs basis across all of our travel routes. Every year we submit the entire length of all of those routes to the Scottish Government and COSLA which then allocates money based on those lengths to the council.

“That changes on a year to year basis as more is added to it. I am more than happy to and have in the past raised the issue round Glasgow’s routes all having a much higher usage than other places and therefore I would like to see us get more per square metre but that is an argument that I will have to continue to have with COSLA and the Scottish Government.”