M77 motorway

UK motorway routebox
motorway= M77
length-mi= 20
length-km= 32
direction= North - South
start= Glasgow
Kinning Park
destinations= A77
South-west Scotland
end= Fenwick
work-started= 1977
opening-date= 1977
completion-date=2005
junctions= The M77 motorway is a motorway in Scotland. It originally began in southern Glasgow at the M8 motorway at Kinning park, and terminates near Kilmarnock at the village of Fenwick. However, changes were made in autumn 2005 segregating a lane on the M8 motorway almost as far as the Kingston Bridge, which in January 2006 was extended further actually onto the bridge itself. It forms the most northerly part of the A77 trunk road which links Glasgow to Stranraer in the South West of Scotland. (The A77 itself continues to Portpatrick in the Rhins of Galloway, the closest Scottish village to Belfast.)

The original M77 was merely a short 1½ mile (2.4 km) long spur route which took traffic from the M8 motorway in the Kinning Park area of Glasgow, ending at a roundabout located on Dumbreck Road close to Bellahouston Park (although prior to this had been an unused spur running to roughly Ibrox telephone exchange on Gower Street. However, a large number of accidents and pollution problems caused in the Giffnock and Newton Mearns districts by commuter traffic and heavy lorries (the A77 is also the main route for ferry-bound traffic sailing to Northern Ireland), saw an extension being built to the motorway in 1994 to bypass these areas, which was opened in 1997. This was fiercely opposed by environmentalists, who set up a road protest camp, [Citation
title=Pollok Free State Lives On!
url=http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no5/region_scotland.htm
journal=Do or Die
issue=5] as it meant that the motorway would cut a tranche through the historic Pollok Country Park. However, approval for the extension was granted and construction went ahead. It has been suggested that the Conservative Government of the day pushed the project through because Newton Mearns, which stood to benefit from the extension, lay in the middle of a Conservative-controlled constituency.Fact|date=March 2007 However, a threatening visit in 1995 to the protesters of 'Pollok Free State' by the Conservative Member of Parliament Allan Stewart (then the MP for Eastwood, the constituency including Newton Mearns, accompanied by his airgun-wielding son, resulted in a political shot in the foot, contributing to his subsequent resignation, and a fine for his son in Paisley Sheriff Court [http://www.web.ca/~detour/tm/ukaction.html] .

Tree carvings made by the residents of 'Pollok Free State', can still be seen from the road in the woods to the left of the Pollok southbound turn off. Fact|date=February 2007

The latest upgrade was instigated in 2004, and involved extending the M77 a further 9 miles (15 km) south to the village of Fenwick, near Kilmarnock. This replaced the dangerous 4-lane unsegregated dual carriageway of the A77 that dropped to a two lane single carriageway for the bend just north of the Mearnskirk turn-off, and the A77/B764 (Eaglesham) junction (causing vehicles to queue dangerously on the outside lane on a bend to enter the B764 from the south) which were prone to fatal accidents. The scheme also included the Glasgow Southern Orbital (GSO) which bypasses the B764 Eaglesham Moor road to East Kilbride. It was completed in April 2005.

In 2006, Junction 2 was rebuilt in conjunction with the building of the adjacent Silverburn Shopping Centre. The northbound off-ramp and southbound on-ramp are now routed via the access roundabout to the shopping centre.

Much of the original section of the A77 that carried the traffic now accommodated by the M77 has been converted into a two lane single carriageway with cycle lanes.

Junctions

References

ee also

*List of motorways in the United Kingdom

External links

* [http://www.cbrd.co.uk/motorway/m77/ CBRD Motorway Database - M77]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4490415.stm BBC News article]
* [http://www.iht.org/motorway/m77glaskilm.htm The Motorway Archive - M77]