00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's Transport Correspondent at Scotland's newest bridge.
00:06It's a nearly 30 million pound crossing over the Clyde between Govan and Partick beside
00:13the Riverside Museum behind me.
00:15The design of the bridge is cable-stayed and it's a little reminiscent of part of the Queensferry
00:19Crossing but the inspiration has actually come from the cranes of shipyards which used
00:26to line the Clyde around this area.
00:29The bridge is one of the longest in Europe carrying pedestrians and cyclists that's opened
00:35to river traffic.
00:37It's more than 100 metres long and it will officially open for the first time on Saturday.
00:42It takes about three minutes to swing horizontally to let river traffic through.
00:49And some of those boats coming through in the future will include the veteran paddle
00:55steamer Waverley based in Glasgow and which was built at the shipyard which stood on the
01:02site of the Riverside Museum.
01:04Well this bridge reconnects Govan to the north of the river and vice versa for the first
01:10time in decades.
01:12Historically there was always a crossing over the Clyde connecting Govan to the rest of
01:18the city but for a long time there hasn't been really since the last ferry stopped.
01:23And in some ways Govan has been a wee bit cut off, a wee bit isolated and this bridge
01:27will change all of that.
01:30It doesn't just reconnect Govan, most importantly it reconnects people and the school children
01:37who've joined us at the bridge today are kind of symbolic of that.
01:40Kids from the Govan side and kids from the York Hill and Partick side have met in the
01:44middle of the bridge.
01:46These are opportunities that didn't exist before and in actual fact the Riverside Museum
01:51behind us, when I was there recently the staff there told me that when they do a count
01:57of the visitors from different places but particularly from within the city, actually
02:02the ward in the city that has the fewest visitors to the Riverside Museum is Govan.
02:07Even though it is absolutely, you can see it, you can almost reach out and touch it,
02:14there was that disconnection, all of that will change and Govan is now back in many
02:20ways as it should always have been as one of Glasgow's most important neighbourhoods
02:25right at the heart of the city again.
02:26Now the bridge is just for people walking, wheeling and cycling, so what benefit could
02:31that be to encouraging more people for active travel, particularly cycling?
02:35Well we're seeing it already in Glasgow, there is definitely an element of if you build it
02:39they will come.
02:41In the past, even just the past five years but definitely the past decade, Glasgow's
02:45transformed as a cycling city and it's because we've invested in high quality cycling infrastructure.
02:52So I think this is going to be very very well used, we've seen it already with the bridge
02:57that we opened last year that connects Sight Hill in the north of the city back to the
03:02city centre again, it has been really well used by people walking and cycling and what
03:08it does is demonstrate that actually you don't have to use your car in order to get places,
03:16if we build the connections then people will use those connections in an active way and
03:22so I think it's one of the most exciting things about it that the kids that are here today
03:28will be able to get on their bikes and get out and enjoy different parts of the city
03:31that otherwise they wouldn't have been able to access.
03:33And it's a new city landmark, could this be an attraction in its own right?
03:39I think it will be yes and I think that it's going to be potentially a real game changer
03:43for Govan, we have a little bit further in Govan around the Queen Elizabeth University
03:50Hospital, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District that the University of Glasgow is
03:56creating and that will actually create, the bridge creates an innovation district that
04:03spans the river from what we know of as the University of Glasgow campus to what will
04:08now be a much bigger University of Glasgow campus. We've already seen from our city centre
04:14innovation district around the University of Strathclyde that that is a real game changer
04:18for jobs, for investment, for Glasgow becoming a real innovation capital. We regularly now
04:26are ranked among the top ten most innovative cities in the world and that Govan is now
04:32going to be at the heart of that as well, so it's about new jobs, new opportunities
04:37for local people. Govan still has deeply embedded poverty and high levels of multiple deprivation
04:45and for me this has always been not just about how you get from one side of the river to
04:51another, it is, without being a bit cheesy, it's a bridge to something else, it's a bridge
04:57to better lives for people, better opportunities for people and better places as well. I think
05:03it will make Govan a better place. These new homes that are just over here in Water Row
05:09are part of the same city deal investment and they are going to be among the most highly
05:16sought after homes in the city now. Talk about brilliantly connected with spectacular views,
05:22that's a transformation for Govan. Only a couple of years ago that was long-standing
05:26vacant and derelict land and look at it now. So we're already seeing the impact that it's
05:31making and I think that will continue for many years to come.
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