Top award for M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project

The M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project has won a Saltire Civil Engineering Award from the Institution of Civil Engineers in association with the Saltire Society.

The £500m project won the ‘Infrastructure’ category at a ceremony held in the National Museum of Scotland (on Tuesday, 24 October).

The award was presented by Jamie Hepburn, Minister for Employability and Training.

The project completed the so-called ‘missing link’ between Glasgow and Edinburgh, introducing uninterrupted motorway between the cities for the first time. Other changes included improvements to the old A8, M73, M74 and Raith Junction.

These are delivering a range of benefits to the people of Scotland, including reduced congestion and emissions, better journey times, improved journey time reliability and, it is expected, increased safety.

This is with the aim of boosting Scotland’s economy – journey time savings were assessed as contributing more than £1bn to Scotland’s economy, improving connections for businesses.

Keith Brown, Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work, said:

“This award is very well deserved as the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project was a massive undertaking which presented a range of technical and logistical challenges within a demanding timeframe.

“The project team’s response was first class and delivered a rejuvenated road network which is already delivering for Scotland’s economy by cutting congestion and reducing journey times for more than 100,000 vehicles a day.”

Construction on the project started in February 2014 and all roads were opened to traffic in Spring 2017, as planned.