The Friarton Bridge is a steel box girder bridge with a concrete deck, across the River Tay on the southeastern outskirts of

Perth, Scotland Perth (Scottish English, locally: ; gd, Peairt ) is a city in central Scotland, on the banks of the River Tay. It is the administrative centre of Perth and Kinross council area and the historic county town of Perthshire. It had a population o ...

. It is located approximately upstream of the

Tay Road Bridge The Tay Road Bridge ( gd, Drochaid-rathaid na Tatha) carries the A92 road across the Firth of Tay from Newport-on-Tay in Fife to Dundee in Scotland, just downstream of the Tay Rail Bridge. At around , it is one of the longest road bridges in Eu ...

Design

The bridge was constructed by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company with Miller Group as the foundation and concrete sub-contractor, while it was designed by Freeman Fox & Partners, with the team being led by Dr Oleg Kerensky and the resident engineer H Binnie. The site manager for Cleveland was J Robinson and for Miller it was R Gormley. The bridge consists of a pair of steel box girders (one under each carriageway) wide overlaid by a lightweight concrete deck. The bridge is long, with a river span of . The river span provided a head room for a width of of the wide navigation channel. The boxes vary in depth between , with the deeper section located close to the river. It forms part of the eastern spur of the M90 between junctions 10 (Craigend) and 11 (Broxden), the most northerly motorway junction in the UK. It also forms part of the important east coast road corridor from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

through to

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

and

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

. It was the single largest structure on the M90, a title it held until the completion of the

Queensferry Crossing The Queensferry Crossing (formerly the Forth Replacement Crossing) is a road bridge in Scotland. It was built alongside the existing Forth Road Bridge and carries the M90 motorway across the Firth of Forth between Edinburgh, at South Queensfer ...

in 2017. It was the first large box girder bridge to be built to the Merrison Rules, which were introduced in 1973 after the collapse during construction of three box girder bridges during the 1970s. The bridge was strengthened during the 2000s to cope with modern traffic loadings. The bridge spans the river, the Dundee-Perth railway line, a number of warehouses and the A85 high above the surrounding plain. It is a two-lane

dual carriageway A dual carriageway ( BE) or divided highway ( AE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are ...

; unusually for a

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

(although not unusually for the M90) neither carriageway has a

hard shoulder A shoulder, hard shoulder (British) or breakdown lane, is an emergency stopping lane by the verge of a road or motorway, on the right side in countries which drive on the right, and on the left side in countries which drive on the left. Many wid ...

. When it was built in 1978, it was designated as the M85 motorway. When the A85 from the north end of the bridge to Dundee was renumbered in the early 1990s to A90 through to Dundee, the motorway's designation changed to M90 to provide a continuous route number from Edinburgh through to

Fraserburgh Fraserburgh (; sco, The Broch or ; gd, A' Bhruaich) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland with a population recorded in the 2011 Census at 13,100. It lies at the far northeast corner of Aberdeenshire, about north of Aberdeen, and north of ...

Gallery

Image:View from Kinnoul Hill.jpg, Another view from

Kinnoull Hill Kinnoull Hill is a hill located partly in Perth and partly in Kinfauns, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It shares its name with the nearby Kinnoull parish. Summit In view from the -high south-facing summit is the Friarton Bridge, a stretch of the ...

, showing the M90's junction with the A85

References

TRIS Online: M90 Friarton Bridge Improvements
The Journal of the institution of Structural Engineers ; The Structural Engineer Volume 58A Number 12 December 1980; Design and construction of Friarton Bridge Bridges across the River Tay Bridges in Perth, Scotland Bridges completed in 1978 Motorway bridges in Scotland 1978 establishments in Scotland {{UK-bridge-struct-stub