Car Tolls Insufficient To Pay For Forth Bridge

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30534, 1 September 1964, Page 17

Car Tolls Insufficient To Pay For Forth Bridge

(Special Crspdt. N.Z P.A.) LONDON, August 31. The Queen will open Scotland’s £2O million Firth of Forth bridge between the south and north Queensferry next Friday. Close to the 70-year-old railway bridge, it is the fourth longest in the world with the longest single span in Europe—33oo feet.

It carries dual 24ft roadways, 9ft cycle tracks, and 6ft pavements. It is one and a half miles long. Motorists driving at a steady 30 miles an hour will take 2min 16.5 sec to cross it Pedestrians will be able to walk over it in 25 minutes. It is nearly 41 years since the idea of the bridge was first suggested, and plans and counter plans were discussed for 35 years before building began. On November 22, 1958, power was turned on for the first hammer blow.

The bridge has used 7500 tons of galvanised steel cables, 150,000 cubic yards of concrete, and 22,000 tons of steel superstructure. More than £20,000 was spent on testing and buying terylene and hemp safety nets and harnesses for the workmen. Last July two men died and one has still not been found. During the winter of 1982, the bridge’s other victim, an Irish tea-boy, was killed when a winch smashed. In 1946, when the plan was approved, the cost was put at £6 million, of which the Government agreed to lend threequarters.

Since then the bill has more than trebled, and the Government has had to lend £l4 million. As motorists will be charged a toll of only 2s 6d the bridge is not likely to pay for itself, even if five million cars cross it every year. This income would not meet the 6} per cent interest on the loan. If the bridge were to pay for itself in 30 years an economic toll would be 13s 4d for each vehicle. It will now be possible to cover the 44 miles from Edinburgh to Perth within the hour, which was the time often spent for the ferry.