This is a collection of thoughts and statements about things that annoy me. I am a big, angry man. Hear me roar, or piss off and give me peace.

Friday, February 08, 2008

A bridge too far

Well, a tollbooth too far anyway.

The booths on the approach to the Forth Road Bridge are being demolished, at the estimated cost of £2,000,000. Sorry? What? Are these the same booths that were only constructed in 2006, at the cost of £4,000,000.

Who are these utter bastards who are pissing £6,000,000 up the wall like this?

Even with the removal of the toll charges, there is no need to physically remove the booths. Indeed, they could be useful - when it comes to shutting the bridge in high winds or if there's an accident (like that HGV the other week...) or for simply controlling traffic flow as the 4 or 5 lanes of traffic are merged in to the 2 that cross the bridge.

Who has taken the decision to remove the booths.
Who is paying for this?
Why are these fuckers doing this work in peak times (people at my work are constantly whining about the crap traffic now!)

Surely I am not the only person who thinks leaving the booths there would be a great idea, and save £2,000,000! The folk who are pissing this money up the wall would do well to remember "tollbooth" is an auld Scots word for the jail!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really don't understand why the sums of money are always so large? Who is getting the cream? They should leave the booths well alone, although I am sure they would find another use for that money in only a matter of a few minutes. It wouldn't be on anything to help anyone, perhaps a solid gold umbrella.

Anonymous said...

Mostly agree with your blog, but the case for removal is clear

1) the toll channels are too narrow for fast-moving traffic to pass through safely (idiots in novas with huge exhausts dying doesn't bother me, but it would cause bridge closures which do)

2) They intend to sell the entire toll system elsewhere and anticipate making about £2-3m from the sale. They could have demolished the lot for a few £100k, but then there would have been no chance of selling any of the kit on! Marginal benefit? Perhaps.

All that's needed to control traffic in the event of bridge closure is a few signs, as is already demonstrated southbound.

Ian S

Anonymous said...

Great Blog

:-)