No more Forth/Tay bridge tolls

[Lazydonkey]

Will it mean less queues or will it just mean people who wouldnt have considered using the bridge will now do so meaning the same sorta queues?

Glass is half empty just had to come back from livingston on the f*cking m8 faction

[craigs135s]

Will it mean less queues or will it just mean people who wouldnt have considered using the bridge will now do so meaning the same sorta queues?

Glass is half empty just had to come back from livingston on the f*cking m8 faction

Thats a good point mate espically with the road works STILL going on at the Kincardine Bridge. I went that way to work one morning and it took 40 mins to get across it.

Cheers
C

[jason]

Andy

Seeing as you're now FM/PM/CD... could you dual all the A1 and fill in the potholes in East Lothian please

[gorrie]

Even with the same traffic passing through, I can't see it making much difference to the queues if they keep the toll booths in place (and surely they won't rip them out straight away in case there is a u-turn in government policy.... surely not).

Traffic will be reduced to 30mph through the defunct tolls/lanes no doubt.... which means traffic will still get backed up further down the road. Speed is reduced on the bridge anyway (variable depending on weather).. so again you have that wave of braking...

If they do eventually remove the booths (who's paying for that), then that whole road section will need sorted as there is no way you could 'safely' join 70mph traffic from the slip road on the overpass.

All this will do is make my total expenditure for a track day be £1 less....

[Lazydonkey]

Will it mean less queues or will it just mean people who wouldnt have considered using the bridge will now do so meaning the same sorta queues?

Glass is half empty just had to come back from livingston on the f*cking m8 faction

Thats a good point mate espically with the road works STILL going on at the Kincardine Bridge. I went that way to work one morning and it took 40 mins to get across it.

Cheers
C

Tell me about it. Live in Glasgow - work in rosyth

[johnboy_78]

Are there still plans afoot to build a tunnel across the Forth ?

No, it was too expensive and restrictive (it wouldn't allow the transportation of certain harardous materials). They opted for a cable stayed bridge to replace the existing crossing. Project will cost somewhere between £3-4billion.

http://www.scottishexecutive.gov.uk/New ... 2/19143707

[campbell]

My guess is the tolls abolition is purely a political statement and not based on sound economics. Unless the original toll wasn't based on sound economics in the first place

Not living in Fife I can't say this for sure, but I would have thought there is more impact on the Fife economy from the delays on the Bridge than the cost of the tolls themselves. After all, a 30-40 mile round trip to work will cost you a few pounds in fuel and maybe parking too so what's another pound a trip?

If stopping to pay tolls creates delays, then abolition ought, by logic, to be good and helpful. But removal of southbound tolls, and then also creation of the M9 spur to get round the A8000, appears to have done NOTHING for morning queues in that direction? So what the blazes is going on?

And as for the new crossing. Cracking idea to build another one just like the current one which is coming apart at the seams after only 40 years. And which will suffer the same weather issues. If it's hazardous loads...well feck 'em, send them over the new Clackmannanananananshirey Bridgey thing they're installing, surely such stuff is in the minority. If it's not, I'd be worried!!!

Where is Jezza Clarkson when you need him.

Campbell

[rossybee]

No more Forth/Tay bridge tolls

(sigh) Even less reason to keep out bloody Fifers!

[Rag_It]

Shut it you fat Dundonians who look ALL look like Johnny Vegas!!!

us Fifers have helped drive up your house prices....

[james]

Ahhhhhh a quality piece of planning by our outgoing and incoming governments. Spend a couple £m tarting up the toll booths then shut em down.

Its like respraying your car then sending it to the scrappies.

What a total waste of taxpayers money.

Tolls no more. Progress at last. But what will the toll booth operators get paid to do now? If this episode is anything to go by, they will have em sitting at the side of the road waving at traffic.

[eoinmac]

AND .....£.I million to remove the booths !!!!!!!! after the tolls are scrapped

[Sanjøy]

mebbies if you dont pay you cannot sue when it falls when you are on it...

[rossybee]

Shut it you fat Dundonians who look ALL look like Johnny Vegas!!!

us Fifers have helped drive up your house prices....

I'll drink to that mate!

(last house tripled in value in 7 years faction )

[Tom]

I heard on the radio that they are starting removal asap. poss even on monday. Should only cost £1million to remove them (after the £5million build cost). I reckon though that tolls are fair enough, especially as continuing them in this case and allowing the money to go towards the cost of the new bridge makes sense (to me at least).

Anyone remember the Skye bridge saga a few years ago.? The government let a private company build the bridge (i believe whilst also giving them a grant for it - kind of public/private thing meaning they won't have to fund it fully). Then the company charges £5 odd each way, justifying it by saying that that was what the ferry had cost. Eventually, the company had earnt back three times the money they spent on it. By this point people were barricading the bridge in protest. So, the government decided to "do the right thing" and bought it back off the private company for more than it cost to build, and it is now free. Now if that's not a genius way to spend the taxpayer's money then i don't know what is....

[robin]

The new bridge is not the same design as the old bridge; that's not to say it won't have problems, but it won't have the same problems.

IIRC the tolls were meant to last long enough to repay the cost of building the bridge; the continuation of the tolls after that point was beyond the original mandate I suppose, but then again it is clear that the costs associated with keeping the bridge working for the next 10 years are going to be enormous, so I am a bit disappointed that they have decided to shift that burden onto the general tax payer.

It's clear that the 50mph speed limit that stretches back to the M9 access road will simply remain even once the booths are dismantled, so there is no need to worry about how we're going to squeeze four lanes into two at 70 whilst heading for the bridge. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the bridge limit was dropped to 40 in the coming years in an attempt to limit damage.

Cheers,
Robin