Wind speed 3rd January on Forth bridge. Courtesy of official Forth Bridge website

Alex Neil used the same interview to highlight the wind proofing that will be present on the new bridge – a giant wind shield – to prevent closure in the future on the new bridge.

Finally, I’m pretty sure this is just a bit of scare mongering/rumour, but the Dunfermline press ran an article a few days ago hinting that there could be a return to bridge tolls in an effort to meet carbon emission standards. Needless to say, the SNP government rebutted this suggestion.

M9 Spur works and average speed cameras on M9 Spur and M90 approach
In addition to the previous post detailing the average speed cameras in Fife along the M90 and feeder roads, there are currently also average speed cameras on the M9 spur and the M9. These are in place during the early phases of construction of the M9 junction 1A upgrade. Just as in Fife, they involve hard shoulder closure and lane restrictions to allow the construction of overhead gantries. This work is being undertaken by Irish firm John Sisk also known as Sisk Roadbridge.

According to a report in Fife Today, 95% of motorists are obeying the M90 average speed of 40mph. I find this fairly surprising travelling that way quite frequently and being overtaken a lot while sitting at 40mph for such a long stretch. Of course I disagree the assertion in the article that this low speed increases the safety for workers, mainly as we’ve not seen any work taking place yet!

Post-construction management of bridges to be privatised
Various reports suggest the completed bridge will be managed by a private company. This follows the wind down of the current operator FETA, whose board was sacked by the SNP Transport minister Keith Brown and will not be bidding for the new contract. A rather curious move, when FETA was widely considered to being doing a good job on the current crossing. Current jobs are promised to be secure to be taken up by the new managing company.

Project information
There is now a dedicated phone number for enqueries relating to the Forth Road Bridge. Thanks to Queensferry Districts Community Council for bringing this to my attention. The number is: 0800 078 6910

There have been a series of meet the contractor events. I was unable to attend, but the slides have been posted here if you are interested.

Contracts and tenders
A number of tenders have been put out for work relating to the new Forth bridge. I don’t keep a close eye on these sites so I’m sure I’m missing quite a few. However below are a selection:
Roadsweeper hire
Security Services
Concrete cutting

Port edgar long sea outfall (sewarage works)
I’ve found a case study posted detailing the work that was undertaken at Port Edgar last year on moving the sewerage pipe. It’s quite an interesting read with a few nice photos.

Those of you who have recently travelled to or from the bridge in Fife will have noticed speed restrictions in place and the closure of the hard shoulder. The road works are scheduled to last until the summer of 2012 and are for the installation of an Intelligent Traffic System (ITS), or average speed cameras to most of us. They are in place from the Forth road bridge to Halbeath near Dunfermline along the M90 and also on the A823 on the approach to the M90 from Pitreavie. Transport Scotland say that the initial phase of hard shoulder closures are for the construction of gantries upon which to site the cameras, which use automatic number plate recognition to catch speeding drivers.

new 40mph limit for average speed cameras on approach to forth road bridge

The image above shows the extent of the current road works with the old 40mph limit at the approach to the bridge marked in purple. You can see the zone now extends to the Pitreavie roundabout (blue marker), Halbeath (green) and Crossgates on the A92 (yellow).

Finally, I came across some Youtube footage of the barge doing site investigation work at Beamer Rock. According to the people who posted the video, the barge is called Jakup and is owned by Fastnet shipping. — update, URL updated 11/12/2011

A near £13million pound contract was awarded to Northern Irish firm John Graham, to install a variable speed limit system also known as an Integrated Transport System (ITS). The system will operate to control speed during heavy traffic and is supposed to reduce congestion, enforced via cameras.

May also saw the start of the first senior vacancies being advertised on various recruitment sites. While unfortunately the links have expired, these included Head of Safety at the Forth Replacement Crossing and several senior engineering jobs advertised by Morrisons.

Away from jobs and contract awards, We witnessed the first local outrage as trees were felled as part of preliminary construction tasks, without any kind of dialogue with local residents.