The idea of a direct connection between the Cart Navigation and the Forth and Clyde Canal had first been suggested by Hugh Baird in 1799, but no further action had been taken. When the Forth and Cart Canal was promoted in the 1830s, it essentially revived Baird's plan, in the hope that it would provide a better route between Paisley and the Firth of Forth than the alternative which went via Port Eglinton and Port Dundas. Port Dundas was on the north bank of the Clyde, at the end of the Glasgow Branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal, where it joined the Monkland Canal, while Port Eglinton was only a short distance away on the south bank, and was the terminus of the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal. There was no waterway between them and so goods had to be transferred by road.