Southside of Glasgow - a no go area?

I know I've ranted about this before but I'm going to have another go at it.

Today I tried to drop my library buddy Alex off at a friend's house near Craigton Primary School just off Paisley Road West in Bellahouston. Alex has Parkinson's and is to be admired for how he just gets out there and gets on with his life. He has good days and bad. Today he was tired, so I really wanted to get him as close to where he was going as possible. We're both locals and know most of the south west of Glasgow pretty well so we thought we knew where we were going.

It didn't take us long to work out that some mad person in Glasgow City Council has made it near enough impossible to get into the streets near Craigton school - and, once you're in, it's just about impossible to get out. In fact, you're more or less unable to turn off Paisley Road anywhere between Cardonald and Paisley Road Toll. So round and round we went, stopped by bollards and no entry signs at every turn. At one point I thought I'd knackered the chassis of my car on a speed bump.

This ridiculous arrangement is obviously meant to deter people going to games at Ibrox Park from leaving their cars outside people's houses. Footie fans park on the streets of the Southside because there's no real parking provided. In fact, the place where car parks could have been built is Helen Street. Car parks there could have serviced both Ibrox and - with the addition of a bus service - the national stadium at Hampden. They could even have picked up some income from people leaving their cars and car-sharing to get into the city centre and out to Paisley and Inverclyde. But no, instead of car parking, we have the largest police station outside Central London and a bloody great Asda supermarket. The City Fathers need a swift kick up the arse for that one. There is still some waste land available near Ibrox stadium but no sign of anything sensible - like car parking - being built on it.

I wonder if anyone has carried out a survey of not just local residents but local road users. How much time is wasted by emergency services trying to find their way in to residential areas through this maze of obstructions? And I'd love to hear what my friends who live in Bellahouston Drive make of the decision by Glasgow City Council to - not block off their street, which was being used as a rat-run by speeding motorists - but as a legitimate short-cut serviced by a set of traffic lights at the Mosspark Boulevard end.

All of the above, in my opinion, involves turning the local area into a traffic maze: a playground for cars. The quality of life is diminished as a result. Shameful.