Forth Road Bridge after work each evening

[StescoG66]

Don’t us it that often, but surprises me that at peak times they don’t make the FRB for east bound/east coming traffic and the QC for west.

[Lugy]

Anyone noticed that the morning rush hour times have moved?
At 0630 I've joined the queue at near enough Amazon, yet when I'm coming home from night shift (0800-0830ish) there's rarely any build up. I presume everyone is trying to beat the traffic .
Also noticed a lot of people using the hard shoulder/bus lane of late .

[simoid]

Lugy said:

Anyone noticed that the morning rush hour times have moved?
At 0630 I've joined the queue at near enough Amazon, yet when I'm coming home from night shift (0800-0830ish) there's rarely any build up. I presume everyone is trying to beat the traffic .
Also noticed a lot of people using the hard shoulder/bus lane of late .

The A90 from Queensferry to Barnton bus lanes are a joke. As many people seem to use the bus lanes as use the actual traffic lanes at times

[Thats you there]

Really long term lurker and joined Pistonheads to answer the question about re-opening the old Forth Road Bridge during peak or busy times.
I've walked the old bridge about once a week since the new Queensferry Crossing opened.
There has been repair work being carried out on the old bridge seven days a week over the whole time.
The southbound carriageway has been closed for at least the last year ( a contraflow for the buses on the northbound carriageway) while the appear to be working on the expansion joints.
They have still to do the southbound.
I wouldn't hold my breath about the old bridge being capable of two way traffic for at least a couple of years.

[simoid]

Welcome and thanks for the insight

[Halmyre]

Yes, they've been replacing all the expansion joints.

Little or no chance of it ever being open for anything other than buses, taxis and MAMILs. Even motorbikes can't use it.

[Davie]

The rush hour shift seems to apply everywhere now . The bypass west bound queues appear to start about 6am and end about 10:30. It'll get worse before it gets better assuming the Sheriffhall rehash ever gets going.

[simoid]

I left Edinburgh at 4.45 on Friday and there was almost nothing on the road. Quite spooky. Presumably everyone was out on the piss

[Condi]

Halmyre said:

Yes, they've been replacing all the expansion joints.

Little or no chance of it ever being open for anything other than buses, taxis and MAMILs. Even motorbikes can't use it.

But why though? It was safe/serviceable enough before, and as much as the SNP say the new bridge wasn't to increase capacity, if its a bottleneck and the other bridge is usable surely common sense would say to use that, even if just as busy times? If its not serviceable, why are they spending the millions of pounds to fix the expansion joints, just knock the thing down and sell the steel!

[Thats you there]

I think the expansion joints are only one of many items being repaired.
They spent ages doing repairs to the pins that failed causing the original shut down , was it for six weeks?
There's a works compound on the northbound side almost where the original tolls were

[tim0409]

Davie said:

The rush hour shift seems to apply everywhere now . The bypass west bound queues appear to start about 6am and end about 10:30. It'll get worse before it gets better assuming the Sheriffhall rehash ever gets going.

I don't think Sheriffhall will make much if any difference unfortunately, apart from pushing the westbound queuing traffic a few miles towards Straiton. By the time it's built there will have been significant housing growth in East Lothian, Midlothian inc. Shawfair, which will make the bypass much worse than it is now (if that's possible!).

[ruggedscotty]

Here is a map of the Edinburgh bypass and the connection to the Queensferry crossing. Edinburgh is pretty mush a constrained city, the bypass when it was originally designed was part of a larger upgrade, the M8 was meant to run into Edinburgh and there would have been an inner ring motorway, much like Glasgow had originally been planned to have. This would have served the Edinburgh traffic leaving the bypass as a bypass.

I spent two and half years working at a new hospital which is near to the Royal Infirmary, I live in Broxburn so as you can imagine I had a long time to think about the roads in and around Edinburgh. There are several pinch points, and ones that really do mess up the traffic.

Sadly the over pass at Sherriffhall will not provide much in the way of relief to the bypass but will improve the immediate issues with the Sherriffhall roundabout. Ive seen traffic queue from A1 down to the Sheriff, and even with a revised sequence on the roundabout lights it gets very sticky. Once this roundabout is removed traffic will flow freely over the roundabout, however other points on the bypass will become more of an issue as the roundabout tempers the flow somewhat.

The bypass needs to be three lanes, one of the major pinch points is the climb from the M8 junction east bound as it climbs a hill here that waggons always struggle with. If they provided extra capacity there then it would have a positive effect on the flows. The M8 junction with the city bypass snarls because of the sheer amount of traffic that hits the bypass from the M8. It should be a direct connection to the bypass, proper mainline. The M8 from Livingston should be 3 lanes and this should become the bypass. reconfigure the Hermiston Gait interchange and then start to look at the M8. A junction for the Airport, that would provide a direct connection to the M8. provide a link to Broxburn from the M8.

Get the traffic moving. The A8 Newbridge junction this jams up with traffic heading from the A8 to the M9 - that flow could be relieved by a link to the M8 at the airport.

The A70 / A71 corridor could be improved with the addition of a link from the Livingston A899 by way of a dual carriageway towards the city bypass. Open up the east west corridor And provide a means of utilising these new east west corridors as there seems to be an issue with any east west movements. its very difficult and this lack of choice causes an excessive overuse of one or two routes.... try looking at the morning rush hour and evening rush hour madness....

Edited by ruggedscotty on Monday 9th December 22:02

[alangla]

It does seem odd that the A71 has a free-flowing connection to the M8, but the A720 has to stop at the Hermiston Gait lights. Even if it was just a dog-leg from the A720 slip onto the A71 slip, that would probably improve the flow on the A720 dramatically. Not entirely sure how you'd filter in the A71 traffic though.
As a first move, a bollarded off lane from L1 of the A720-Hermiston Gait roundabout-M8 W L1 bypassing the lights would seem an obvious quick win. Traffic from the roundabout could join the M8 in L2. Alternatively, all-lane running on the M8 from the roundabout to beyond the A71 slip and 2 bollarded lanes with roundabout traffic joining in the new L3.

[simoid]

If one times it just right, one can come down the big bypass hill from Baberton, take the Calder slip, roll through the lights onto the roundabout, up to the next lights on the roundabout, avoid all the folk from A71/Riccarton running the red light, then use said slip road down to the M8 without the need for HGT

[Halmyre]

ruggedscotty said:

Here is a map of the Edinburgh bypass and the connection to the Queensferry crossing. Edinburgh is pretty mush a constrained city, the bypass when it was originally designed was part of a larger upgrade, the M8 was meant to run into Edinburgh and there would have been an inner ring motorway, much like Glasgow had originally been planned to have. This would have served the Edinburgh traffic leaving the bypass as a bypass.

The whole mess is a combination of bodge upon bodge upon "fk it, that'll do". East Lothian is a lovely part of the country, but I avoid visiting it because of the soul-crushing journey it takes to get there.

[tvrolet]

...and breath...

Just arrived after 2 1/2 hours late for a real important meeting since the Queensferry Crossing is closed. fkING CLOSED! South Fife is gridlocked and it took over 2 hours to get from the Admiralty to Kincardine. If only there was some other bridge that traffic could be switched to - oh, wait. Only it's public transport only with half-filled bus every 10 minutes. And the fkwit virtue signaling government is planning it for driverless electric busses. fk's sake - so we save a few bus drivers' wages and introduce all sorts of other problems...but that's another matter.

Apparently it's closed due to 'winter weather' conditions. I'm right on the coast and the bridges are both in sight - the wind was little more than a breeze, and the temperature was 2 degrees. We got a few flurries of sleet/snow yesterday but hit the ground as water; nothing lay.

The story I'm picking up is fear of snow/ice forming on the cables and dropping on the roadway. If this is the case then it's an absolute ste choice of design if it has to close with a bit of snow/sleet forecast...and it hasn't fking snowed since yesterday but the fking bridge has been closed since last night. What a crock of st. And all the smug assholes announcing on time, on budget...it's still not even finished yet as it still has lanes closed overnight for work. Congestion worse than ever morning, night and now weekends too.

Not fit for purpose. Christ I'm fking raging....

Why didn't the assholes build a proper 3-lane each way bridge? Well I know the answer to that one...to get the support from the Greens.
Why didn't they choose a design that wouldn't close with sleet forecast? No fking idea. fking morons.

[alangla]

To be fair, it didn't close during the Beast From The East & there's been no wind related closures so far.
I'd love to know what's so different about it vs the Erskine/Kessock bridges, which presumably are exposed to much worse conditions. It's not as though icing & falling ice on large cable-stayed structures is a new thing, so what's happened this time round? I wonder if something like trace heating could be installed on the cables to keep them ice free.

[Edinburger]

To be fair, it's been open many times when the FRB would have been closed.

[tvrolet]

A bit of spin in there. The ‘open 30 times when the old bridge would have been closed’ relates to any traffic stoppage. In 40 years of crossing the Forth by bridge I can only remember a handful of times it was closed to cars. The closure to double deckers and high vehicles causes problems for sure, but it didn’t gridlock most of South Fife. So why not put the wind deflectors on the old bridge too - it never closed for snow on the bloody cables.

...and don’t get me started again on the congestion. The other spin there is ‘but the northbound queue was often back to the M90 and it’s no worse’. Nope. The slip is maybe 2 miles longer than the old approach so hitting the end of the traffic queue at the same point actually means about 2 miles more traffic. The whole thing is a fking shambles and not fit for purpose except in ideal light traffic and good weather. To think otherwise suggests an irregular and non-rush-hour bridge user’s view of things.

[Edinburger]

tvrolet said:

A bit of spin in there. The ‘open 30 times when the old bridge would have been closed’ relates to any traffic stoppage. In 40 years of crossing the Forth by bridge I can only remember a handful of times it was closed to cars. The closure to double deckers and high vehicles causes problems for sure, but it didn’t gridlock most of South Fife. So why not put the wind deflectors on the old bridge too - it never closed for snow on the bloody cables.

...and don’t get me started again on the congestion. The other spin there is ‘but the northbound queue was often back to the M90 and it’s no worse’. Nope. The slip is maybe 2 miles longer than the old approach so hitting the end of the traffic queue at the same point actually means about 2 miles more traffic. The whole thing is a fking shambles and not fit for purpose except in ideal light traffic and good weather. To think otherwise suggests an irregular and non-rush-hour bridge user’s view of things.

I disagree. The QC is a massive improvement on the FRB, with the exception of this ice/snow problem. The QC has massively reduced disruption in adverse weather and is a huge improvement on the FRB. Yes, it's not perfect. But it's much better.

Edited by Edinburger on Tuesday 11th February 13:13