Kingston Bridge, Glasgow

The bridge connects Anderston and the city centre at Junction 18/19 with Tradeston and the Gorbals at Junction 20. It consists of two parallel spans, each 21 m (68 ft) wide, with each supporting a five lane deck. The eastern span carries southbound traffic and the western span carries northbound traffic over the river. The approaches to the bridge are also linked with many junctions of their own, including major city centre ramps and the M77, that are two lanes wide. The outer spandrels of the bridge are clad with exposed-aggregate panels showing vertical joints.

When opened by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1970, the bridge was designed to handle 120,000 vehicles a day.[6] By 1990, the sheer excess volume and weight of traffic, combined with poor design and flaws in construction, resulted in serious structural deterioration.[7] A decade-long repair and renovation programme was initiated to repair and strengthen the bridge. These repairs have involved strengthening the quay walls and jacking-up the 52,000-tonne deck of the bridge, while still operational, to allow the construction of new supporting piers, before lowering the bridge back onto the new, more robust supports. It was described by the contractor, Balfour Beatty, as one of the most ambitious civil engineering projects to take place in the city. Indeed, the operation involved 128 hydraulic jacks, making it the biggest ever bridge lift, qualifying for the Guinness Book of Records.[8]

A longer-term attempt to solve the problem of chronic congestion is the M74 northern extension, to act as the southern flank of the unbuilt Glasgow Inner Ring Road first planned in the 1960s. The existing "ski ramp" where the Inner Ring was intended to continue on has remained unused; the extended M74 meets the M8 secondary carriageways a few hundred metres further south at Scotland Street. This change of plan from the Scottish Executive was because of the Kingston Bridge's inability to handle an increase in traffic: the thinking was that the increased traffic from the new road will not then go straight over the bridge and will enable traffic from the south east, heading west to Ayrshire, Glasgow International Airport, Glasgow Prestwick Airport, or the docks at Greenock, Hunterston and Braehead, to bypass the Glasgow city centre section of the M8. At the Public Inquiry into the road scheme, critics countered that this would mean an increase in ground-level traffic in the Tradeston area as commuters attempt to gain access to the bridge's access ramps.[9] Prior to the M74 completion, a solution to the congestion problems has been the Clyde Arc or "Squinty Bridge", which opened in September 2006 – this route is expected to take at least some of the local short-distance traffic away from the Kingston. The M74 extension opened on 28 June 2011.

There is a dubious urban myth that the fourth man in the Williamwood bank robbery, Archie McGeachy, is buried in the pillars of the bridge.[10] It features in the music video for the Simple Minds single "Speed Your Love to Me".[11]