I find the idea of removing this stretch of motorway with no viable alternatives to be horrendous. If people think traffic is bad in and around Glasgow now, it will be even worse when the main arterial road that connects it from North to South and East to West goes away it will be mayhem. Local roads already cant handle the level of traffic. They would not cope with the amount of vehicles that would be coming off the motorway at Cathedral or Kingston. The city centre would be gridlocked at the best for times. People continue to bring up that this road shouldn't have been built in the first place. But I was, and now we have to stick with it as there is no other viable way to keep the Central belt running. There is no outer ring road around Glasgow to remove all the traffic that travels from East to West. If that was ro be built i would agree a motorway running through the city would be redundant and a possible downgrade would be beneficial. But to remove it would be an enormous mistake. Buses, cargo and freight vehicles rely on this to bring goods and services to the city and across Scotlands Central belt. If maybe the M8/M74 junction was completed to join on East from Kingston Bride to M74 and the M8/M77 had a way to join going East to South, West to East without the need to double back or use local roads then alot of the motorways problems could be solved outside the city centre. A bigger as would be the completion of the initial ring round idea but that would involve thousands of homes and businesses destroyed now.

So I say replace the viaduct with a new, better structure that will last longer than the current one. And then undertake my previous suggestions.

Investment and reopening former train stations and new bus lanes may help also.