23-05-2025
STEVE FINAN: Why is modern road infrastructure right for everywhere but Dundee?
The last big traffic infrastructure project in Dundee was the construction of the Tay Road Bridge and creation of the inner ring road.
The bridge was completed in August 1966, the last dualled section of the inner ring (linking Lochee Road and Victoria Road) opened in September 1975.
There's been nothing that could be termed a major investment in the half century since.
The city needs an energetic, forceful character to change that.
Someone like Sir Douglas Hardie, who fought for the bridge and was never really given the credit he deserved.
Much needs done.
Dundee has an airport, train station and a poor excuse for a bus station that are ridiculously remote from each other.
Dundee FC could do with high-powered help to cut through the red tape around their new ground's junction problems.
We have the Swallow Roundabout debacle – which leaves the laughable situation of Glendoick Garden Centre having safer and quicker access from the A90 than Scotland's fourth biggest city.
We have the main route serving the whole north-east of Scotland reduced to a single lane bottleneck at the Forfar Road turn-off.
Only selfish cyclists – who think their hobby is more important than HGV access to a huge part of the country – think Dundee doesn't need a bypass.
Forfar has a bypass. Perth, Brechin, Stirling, Dunblane, Kinross, Ayr, Dumfries, Kelty and Bridge of Earn have bypasses.
Aberdeen got an impressive bypass. Edinburgh has had a bypass for 35 years.
The village of Glamis (population 1,000) has a bypass.
The M8, M77, M73 and M74 – easing traffic through the Glasgow area – have seen almost continual improvements in recent decades, costing hundreds of millions.
Why is modern road infrastructure right for all those places but wrong for our city?
Dundee never gets anything from Westminster or Holyrood.
Let's name names.
Trunk roads are managed at national level, so exerting pressure to improve them is a job for MPs.
The Swallow Roundabout is in Chris Law's constituency.
What are you doing about this, Chris? What do you ever say or do about anything in Dundee?
What of our MSPs?
Joe FitzPatrick has been virtually invisible his entire Holyrood career.
It's pointless asking him. He's been treading water waiting for retirement since he was first elected in 2007.
And Shona Robison long ago forgot Dundee put her into her job.
None of them will do anything, we must look to the future.
Heather Anderson is a prospective Dundee City West MSP. What are her thoughts on a bypass?
In a recent interview she stated she was a 'proud Dundonian'. Here's a chance to prove it.
Mind you, her time with the Ministry of Secrecy (some call it Dundee City Council) wasn't good training for speaking out on difficult subjects or challenging authority on the city's behalf.
This is a godsend for any wannabe MSP.
It's an easily understood issue to really get their teeth into.
Something the whole city (except self-absorbed cyclists) can get behind.
Anyone who wants to represent the city should take note.
To any 2026 Scottish election candidate – what's your opinion on a bypass?
Your answer could win, or lose, you thousands of votes.
