Tay and Forth bridges in Scotland lost to tolling - great crew laid off

Adam Smith is turning in his grave. Pandering politicians in his native Scotland have sadly put an end - for now - to tolling on two of the country's big bridges. There are a couple of veteran toll crews available, and like Scots down the ages, they'll travel to the far reaches of the world for new opportunities. Talent hunters in South Africa, India, Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand, Chile, and the US pay attention.

At midnight Sunday Feb 10 the Tay and Forth road bridges ceased toll collection.

No longer will these bridges generate a revenue stream for their support, no longer will those who invested scarce capital in them get their just return, and no longer will motorists pay their fair share of the costs of the service they provide. A shame.

But tolling will be back. Others will point out the folly of reducing these mighty pieces of national infrastructure, potentially self-sufficient, to the role of mendicants of government.

Meanwhile there's a small crew of experienced toll bridge managers looking for work. Iain Bell of Arup consulting (Iain.Bell@arup.com) in London says there are several great guys available including Alastair Andrew (alastairandrew49@aol.com) former general manager of the Forth Road Bridge, and before that of the Tay bridge.

Bell says Andrew is a very gifted and experienced bridge engineer and manager and he thinks the tolling world needs to know of his availability from last Sunday when the politicians laid him off.

Forth Road Bridge

The Forth Road Bridge is a grand suspension bridge with a main span of 1006m (3,298ft) and a total length of 2.5km (1.6 miles) that opened in 1964 replacing ferries. When it opened it was the fourth longest span in the world. Of 4 lanes it carries the A90 and 35k veh/day.

Tolls raised about $32m (Pds16m) a year.

The folly of suspending tolls - opposed by the Forth Estuary Transport Authority which operates the bridge - is underlined by the need for major rebuilding and perhaps replacement of the bridge. A study in 2004 discovered strands of the high tensile steel in the main cable corroding, and some broken. The bridge was engineered for lighter trucks than those now traveling the bridge and there is the possibility that heavy goods vehicles will have to be barred from using the bridge completely because of structural damage.

The transport authority set off a debate on tolls generally with a proposal in late 2005 for variable tolls varying between one and four pounds ($2 and $8) by time of day, intended to reduce congestion and encourage carpooling in peak hours. No-nothing pundits and politicians turned it into an argument in which the Scottish National Party - a rightwing opposition party at the time - picked up the anti-tolls theme with an election promise to de-toll. Then on other issues they found themselves in government.

Tay Bridge

The Tay Road Bridge opened in 1966 and is 4 lanes an 2.25km (1.4 miles) long and of 42 steel girder spans. It was operated by the Tay Road Bridge Joint Board. It carries the A92 and is mainly used by commuters across the river estuary into Dundee.

Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, 1776:

"When the carriages which pass over a highway or bridge...pay toll in proportion to their weight or tonnage, they pay for the maintenance of those public works exactly in proportion to the wear and tear which they occasion of them. It seems scarcely possible to determine a more equitable way of maintaining such works.”

"When the toll upon carriages of luxury coaches, post chaises, &c. is made somewhat higher in proportion to their weight than upon carriages of necessary use, such as carts, waggons, &c. the indolence and vanity of the rich is made to contribute in a very easy manner to relief of the poor, by rendering cheaper the transportation of heavy goods to all the different parts of the country."

"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."

Adam Smith 1723 to 1790 was born and wrote the Wealth of Nations in a house in Kirkcaldy on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth within sight of today's grand Forth bridges. A genius, he was admitted to the University of Glasgow at age 14 and Oxford University at 17. Scathing about the low standards of Oxford compared to Scottish universities he went north again and after writing the Wealth of Nations got chairs successively in logic and moral philosophy at U Glasgow.

PERSONAL: My materal grandfather David Drummond (c1875 to 1956) came from the highlands of Scotland to the fens (swamps) of East Anglia around the turn of the century as a young man and was so successful in farming he accumulated 2,000 acres.

Most of it was put under concrete in World War II for an airfield for British and US heavy bombers that pounded the Nazis day and night.

I remember as a small boy Granpa Drummond in his Scots brogue and my father in his comically accented english - he was a German refugee - chuckling about how the family farm was "being put to quite excellent use."

TOLLROADSnews 2008-02-16