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Through twitter, I've been approached by a Daily Mail journalist looking for cyclists who regularly cycle over the bridge.
Anyone interested please contact
Laura.lambert <AT> dailymail.co.uk
Needs to be this afternoon to make tmrw ' s paper.
Hopefully any article can help get the cycle/ped ban lifted (assuming that is safe to do so)
@Baldcyclist you could just do the lengthy drive via Kincardine bridge once and leave the kids there until new year ;-)
"the full closure is essential for the safety of the travelling public and to prevent further damage to the structure of the bridge."
I see two ways of reading that:
#1: Vehicles will damage the bridge. But, for some reason, cyclists are being banned also.
Or
#2: There's a genuine possibility that a part of the bridge could collapse, so only employees are allowed on it.
If it's the former, it's unacceptable.
And, if the argument is that repair vehicles need the east pedestrian lane, then what about all those other lanes than now no longer have traffic in them?
Can't one be given over to cyclists?
They 'only' need to add a guards van to all the rail services and that's the bikes sorted out
Is your journey really necessary(?)
"
ScotRail said it was adding extra carriages and staff for services on the rail bridge to and from Fife but asked the public to “only travel if necessary”.
ScotRail spokesman Rob Shorthouse stressed passengers on other lines would be informed in advance of any capacity reductions.
"
Can't one be given over to cyclists?
For the bridge operator, this is all very simple.
Their vehicles use the ped/bike lanes on either side for staff to access the towers and also the underside walkways.
Its a one way system for them - the eastside bike lane is for southbound vehicles, and the westside bike lane is for northbound vehicles.
If there are peds or cyclists using the lanes, they are obliged to take greater care.
Far easier to insist on a temporary ped/bike ban so they can get on with the job without any inconvenience.
As a daily bridge bike commuter over the last ten years, I can tell you that if they could get away with banning peds and bikes permanently, they'd do it in a heartbeat.
Not justifying the decision, but I guess they expect to be working over the whole bridge area and will want it completely free of the public. There are seven more of the bit that broke - one on each of the four corners of both towers - so as well as repairing the broken one they'll be reinforcing the others.
(Handy diagram)
I must confess to a teensy little bit schadenfreude at the plight all those people who normally drive into the Edinburgh when they could have been supporting public transport, particularly those now moaning about the inadequacies of public transport.
On the other hand, the trains could never cope with the volume of people who drive over the bridge. Even running full sized trains and loco's there wouldn't be enough capacity.
Spokes has been tweeting to the transport minister about allowing cycles & pedestrians. Retweet if you're on twitter.
https://twitter.com/SpokesLothian
If that was allowed I'd guess there'd be about 3/4 less traffic along Queensferry Road, allowing for a very swift commute.
A failure of long-term planning policy.
I guess proponents of the efficient market hypothesis would tell us that the risk of catastrophic commuting issues is taken into account in the pricing of housing in Fife...
In the twitter feed/diagram that urchaid posted the 'armchair' engineers seem to reckon that the beam in question is more or less redundant.
"Not justifying the decision, but I guess they expect to be working over the whole bridge area and will want it completely free of the public."
No doubt there would be a certain level of inconvenience, but it would be relatively minor - certainly far less effort to accomodate cyclists than to add ferries.
It says a lot about transport in this country that, of all the ideas they have to reduce these 11 mile tailbacks, none of them involve encouraging people to cycle.
Instead, they're adding regular cyclists to the burden placed on the gridlocked roads and overloaded trains.
at least one of those 'armchair engineers' being someone who posts on here, whose opinion i trust...
Just two random thoughts from me:
1. Does anyone have a spare car ferry capable of working the Forth lying around. It seems pretty unlikely.
2. What impact has the privatisation of FRB maintenance had on the response to this incident. I'm not blaming Amey for the incident itself - it was probably years in the making - but would FETA have responded in the same manner? I don't know the answer, a genuine question.
To my eyes it looks like an anti-rotation beam to stop the deck rocking back and forth while still allowing lateral movement
To see what twisting can do to a suspension bridge:
the 'armchair' engineers seem to reckon that the beam in question is more or less redundant.
Not sure about redundant, but the engineers at AMEY (or maybe FETA) were of the opinion until very recently that it wasn't load bearing and not under a lot of stress. Turns out they were wrong.
My armchair guess would be it's a swing link designed to hold the deck in place relative to the towers. Without it the deck could maybe swing forward or sideways and possibly hit the tower. The weight of the deck itself is taken on the cables. (i.e. what Klaxon just said)
would FETA have responded in the same manner?
AMEY suits from Manc were onsite sharpish on wednesday, so they did take it seriously from the get go.
But AMEY's customer is Transport Scotland, not the public.
FETA did have more of a public-facing attitude.
AMEY don't respond to twitter queries, but FETA did.
I made a formal complaint by email a fortnight ago about contractors leaving a step ladder platform lying around unattended and unsecured in the middle of the bike lane in the dark.
They didn't bother to acknowledge my complaint. FETA would have replied promptly.
As to the current situation, its six and half a dozen, i reckon.
But at least the wind speed graph on the website is fixed, as of yesterday..
Following the full closure of the Forth Road Bridge, which is expected to last at least four weeks, ScotRail has been working to add capacity to our services to Fife and the north from the central belt.
So far we have
· Added extra capacity to about a quarter of services between Glenrothes and Edinburgh (19 out of 81)
· Placed extra staff on the ground in the Fife stations in order to try and manage any queues and to get information to customers
· Deployed extra engineers and signalling staff to the Fife routes in order to ensure that any problems that emerge are dealt with quickly
We will also be introducing a queuing system at Edinburgh Waverley at peak times to manage the increase in passenger numbers. This will be in place from today.
We are now working on a plan as to how we continue to add carriages for the duration of the closure. As soon as we have more information we will publish it. Our priority is to keep people moving, but our services will be busy, particularly during the peak. Some difficult decisions may have to be made in Scotland’s interest, including the national economy.
For the weekend, we are advising passengers to plan ahead, expect services to be busier than normal and for them to travel outside of peak periods if at all possible.
I recognise the bridge closure will be incredibly disruptive for all passengers. However, I will continue to keep you up to date with service changes as they develop.
Regards,
Rob Shorthouse
Client and Communications Director
ScotRail
@steveo - certainly not all bridge traffic, but public transport could make a significant dent on the levels of traffic that pour over the bridge and into central Edinburgh every day - it's the (mostly lone) occupants of these cars that I struggle to find sympathy with.
Idle question - when considering the new bridge, did the question of a tunnel instead ever come up?
@eddie_h For all trains, not just ones frae Fife tae Embra.
Rosie - yes, there was a fairly vigorous campaign for a tunnel. Transport Scotland were set against it though.
@Morningsider - for reasons of cost? A tunnel wouldn't close in high winds.
Rosie - partly cost, but they just didn't seem to like the idea. I understand modern wind shielding makes closure of the new bridge pretty unlikely.
It says a lot about transport in this country that, of all the ideas they have to reduce these 11 mile tailbacks, none of them involve encouraging people to cycle.
This. ^^^
I must confess to a teensy little bit schadenfreude at the plight all those people who normally drive into the Edinburgh when they could have been supporting public transport, particularly those now moaning about the inadequacies of public transport.
And maybe a little bit of this. ^^^
Some rocket on the BBC liveblog was wanting compo:
"Not heard any comments on a travel subsidy for Fife commuters, annoying when I read in the headlines about international development, foreign aid, brimstone missiles costing £100,000+ each being dropped on Syria etc. What happened to charity begins at home? Win Win Win for Scotrail - fares going up, barrel of oil at half price and lots more Fife commuters, hooray!
Colin"
No problem, Colin, just as soon as you agree to paying back the subsidy from the rest of Scotland/UK (delete as applicable) for a new £1.4bn motor vehicle-only bridge so you can carry on your (no doubt solo) car commuting ways.
Sometimes this country really depresses me.
WRT tunnel - I understand that the Firth of Forth goes pretty deep - building a tunnel would not be a simple matter.
Rosie - partly cost, but they just didn't seem to like the idea.
Cost and potential for environmental harm, it seems.
Section 3 of the Forth Replacement Crossing Environmental Statement says:
"
3.2.8 The STAG Part 2 Appraisal assessed [these] four options, with the conclusion that environmental impacts were generally similar for the four options; typically minor to moderate adverse. However, Tunnel E and Bridge D were identified as potentially having moderate to major adverse impacts on biodiversity.
3.2.9 Overall, the bridge option in Corridor D was recommended as the best performing option for the following reasons:
Cost - it is significantly cheaper than the tunnel options;
Construction Programme - it can be delivered quicker;
Construction Risk - it has fewer risks associated with its construction;
Economics - it has the best Benefit to Cost Ratio (BCR).
"
The second Tyne Tunnel was built by dredging a trench and installing pre-cast sections of tunnel, and then backfilling. The excess dredging spoil was used to infill the redundant docks. The depth of the Firth of Forth is up to 35 fathoms (64 metres) in the vicinity of the new bridge.
@fimm - no deeper than the Channel and certainly not wider.
For myself I love the bridges for their beauty. Tunnels aren't pretty.
@Arellcat - thanks for that.
Regards the "armchair" engineers, it's worth taking the time to read the quotation from Amey's Chartered Engineer
Chartered engineer Mark Arndt, told a media conference he had been faced with an "unprecedented set of circumstances".
He described the fault as a failure of the "inner link support beam to the North east tower truss end link".
...a crack of about 20mm in width had appeared in the load-bearing link. If the same had gone on to happen on the other side, the road deck could have fallen by a minimum of 150mm (6in). Mr Arndt said: "Should this have failed and the deck did drop that poses an immediate safety risk because it could happen very quickly.
"The other issue is that the load is then supported on other elements that are not designed to take it. Instead of being the end of the year to get the repair implemented you would be talking months."
"fatigue and over-loading over the course of the bridge's 50-year lifespan" had led to the "shear failure" at the bottom of the truss. Shear failures happen very quickly. It is very difficult to predict when they might happen but when they happen it is very quick and very significant.
"This is the main support below the carriageway at the point where the bridge cables meet the tower. ...detailed non-destructive testing was carried out on the adjacent supporting members and they found the load was "propagating" there.
"As shear failures happen quickly and unpredictably we were left with no alternative but recommend the bridge be closed," he said. It is an unprecedented set of circumstances that we faced here. Independent opinion was sought throughout the process. It is a complex engineering challenge at a very difficult to access location."
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