Who thought this out?

Something strange is happening in Glasgow.  Traffic is queuing where it never queued before,  journeys are taking longer. Whole stretches of motorway that were once freely flowing are turning into car parks.

I was puzzling over this as I drove west along the Clydeside Expressway last night.  And it hit me.

All this traffic congestion is the result of one thing.  The new South Glasgow Hospital.

It appears to be the classic case of unintended consequences.  But for such a big project you would have thought the government would have ensured its flagship project was properly planned from the traffic and infrastructure side.  Oh yes, they put in fast bus lanes, which the drivers decided not to use as they were slower than the road.  But when you have a population of a small town descending on to the local roads, you can see what will happen.  So drivers try different routes.  They then get clogged up too. 

I’m sure the hospital itself will settle down and be a great place.  But the complete apparent lack of foresight on how you get thousands of staff in and out, never mind the patients relatives, is a bit of a scandal. Actually, the scandal probably is, they did know before but no one did anything about it.