Tay Road Bridge

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Tay Road Bridge
The Tay Road Bridge, viewed with Dundee in the background.
Official name	Tay Road Bridge
Carries	Motor vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians 4 lanes of A92
Crosses	Tay River
Locale	Dundee
Maintained by	Tay Road Bridge Joint Board
Design	William A Fairhurst
Total length	2,250 metres (1.4 mi)
Opening date	August 18, 1966
Toll	Free since 11 February 2008
Coordinates	56°27′07″N 2°56′53″W / 56.452, -2.948Coordinates: 56°27′07″N 2°56′53″W / 56.452, -2.948

The Tay Road Bridge is an important road bridge in Scotland. It crosses the Firth of Tay from Newport-on-Tay in Fife to Dundee.

It is around 1.4 miles (2,250 m) long, making it one of the longest bridges in Europe, and slopes gradually downward towards Dundee. It carries the A92 road across the Firth and takes traffic directly into the centre of Dundee, just downstream of the Tay Rail Bridge.

1 Construction
2 Commemorative obelisk
3 Tolls
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Construction

As part of the modernisation projects of the 1950s, a road bridge across the Tay had been mooted for several years. In August 1958 a traffic census and test bores were taken to locate the most suitable crossing for the bridge.

The bridge was designed by William A. Fairhurst and construction began in March 1963 with the infilling of West Graving Dock, King William Dock and Earl Grey docks in Dundee. The construction was undertaken by Duncan Logan Construction Ltd. Construction required the demolition of Dundee's Royal Arch where Queen Victoria had entered the city on a royal visit.

The bridge consists of 42 spans with a navigation channel located closer to the Fife side. During the construction of the bridge, 140,000 tons of concrete, 4,600 tons of mild steel and 8,150 tons of structural steel was used. The bridge has a gradient of 1:81 running from 9.75 m (32.0 ft) above sea-level in Dundee to 38.1 m (125.0 ft) above sea-level in Fife.

The bridge took 3½ years to build at a cost of approximately £6 million. Following the installation of the final 65 ton girder on July 4, 1966, the completed bridge was officially opened by the Queen Mother on August 18, 1966. A newsreel of this is available in the British Pathe web archive. For four days, many took advantage of the toll-free period to cross the bridge.

The crossing had previously been made by a ferry service from Newport to Craigie Pier. The final ferry service was made on the day of the opening of the road bridge.

[edit] Commemorative obelisk

A 50 ft (15 m) tall obelisk stands at the Newport side, and a smaller one at the Dundee side, to commemorate Willie Logan, managing director of the company that constructed the bridge who was killed in a plane crash near Inverness, and five workers who died during construction. Both of these obelisks are designed as the piers of the bridge, each representing the height of the piers at that end of the bridge.

[edit] Tolls

The Tay Road Bridge, view from pedestrian path with Dundee in the background.

The bridge was originally a bidirectional toll road with the original 1966 toll for motorcycles, cars and goods vehicles of 1/-, 2/6 and 10/-, respectively. Heavy fines were imposed on drivers who broke down on the bridge if they had run out of petrol. On June 1, 1991, one way tolls were introduced for southbound traffic only.

The legislation enabling the levying of tolls was renewed by Parliament (originally that of the UK but now the responsibility of the Scottish Government) repeatedly, most recently on 1 March 2006, where the toll remained unchanged.^[1] Although motorcycles were exempt; the tolls for cars, buses and heavy goods vehicles were 80p, £1.40 and £2.00, respectively. However, on 31 May 2007, the Scottish Parliament voted to scrap tolls on both the Tay and Forth bridges.^[2] This came into effect at midnight on 10 February 2008.^[3]

The bridge employs 36 staff comprising the Bridge Manager, 2 administration staff, 15 operational staff, and 18 maintenance staff.^[4] These employees are mainly housed in a small administration block to the eastern side of the Dundee end of the bridge.

[edit] References

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