Thursday, October 2, 2008

Bridge Opening Protocol

We attended the ward forum meeting between BW and Highland Council to hear suggestions about a new protocol for opening Tomnahurich and Muirtown bridges.
Basically residents and road users are concerned about the traffic delays that opening these bridges causes especially around peak times, although there are restrictions in place around the rush hour periods.
The council had produced a computer model of the traffic congestion and were going to feed in everybody's suggestions into it to see what effect this would have. Then after doing this they would give the results at another meeting in 4 -6 weeks.
Suggestions included fixed opening times, smart displays, longer 'closed' periods around rush hours, longer operating hours, more efficient bridge operation, etc.
One of our concerns revolved around the fact that computer models do not reflect the real world as far as boats are concerned, and weather conditions and boat handling needed to be factored in.

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