How Glasgow city council plan to reduce road deaths

The plan to transform how people get about Glasgow is set to be approved by councillors.

The key aims of the strategy are to cut car journeys by 30% in the city and to have no deaths involving pedestrians or cyclists by 2030.

Already this year, there has been more deaths than the whole of last year.

As highlighted by the Glasgow Times, between January and May this year there were eight deaths including cyclist Emma Burke Newman, killed after being hit by a lorry on Broomielaw in January.

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Days later, Chinenye Vera Okonkwo, was standing at a bus stop in St Vincent Street, when she was hit by a car and killed and 13-year-old Artian Lushaku, died after he was hit by a car on Balmore Road.

Since that report, another five deaths have been reported in Glasgow, including 39 year-old John Robertson, who was hit by a bus on Argyle Street, Finnieston just after midnight on Monday, June 5.

Days earlier, a 44-year-old died when he was hit by a lorry on Duke Street.

It takes the total so far this year to 13 fatalities.

In the whole of 2022, there were seven deaths.

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The Travel Behaviour Change Strategy includes ‘vision zero” where “no-one is killed or seriously injured on our roads, streets, cycleways and footpaths”.

Part of the plan is to cut car use in the city by 30% over the same period.

The council has a road safety plan which includes measures like enforcement, engineering, cameras and training to make the roads safer.

Vision zero includes: “Reducing car-based traffic, particularly on short to medium journeys at peak times, is just one of the key elements to reducing road casualties in Glasgow”.

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The plans states: “We need to encourage safe sustainable active travel such as walking, cycling and wheeling and explore and support new methods of travel such as e-bikes and scooters.”

George Gillespie, executive director of neighbourhoods, said: “It won’t be sufficient to simply upgrade our private vehicles to lower-carbon versions – we need a step change in the way we get about the city and to support people to make sustainable travel choices such as walking, wheeling, and cycling or utilising public transport.”

He added: “In addition to the health benefits, active travel is more cost-effective than private car travel and our strategies will allow it to become first choice for short everyday journeys.

“For longer trips within or outwith Glasgow, our efforts to support improved public transport will get you where you need to go quickly and conveniently in a sustainable manner.”