The Inveramsay Bridge is a new bridge carrying the A96 over the

Aberdeen to Inverness Line 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), and ...

. The bridge was constructed by Balfour Beatty. It was inaugurated in March 2016. The existing bridge has a 4.4 metre height restriction and cannot fit two tall vehicles under it because of the arch which goes under 3.7

metre The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

s high in places so

traffic lights Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traffic. Traffic light ...

were put in place so only one row of vehicles could go under the bridge at once, the traffic lights caused bad congestion at

rush hour A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...

. For decades this bottleneck was a major problem in the North East's infrastructure with delays being caused on both the A96 and the

, caused by the speed limits imposed on the line following any HGV colliding the bridge, until the bridge could be inspected by a structural engineer. Despite this there was no political will from the three main UK parties (

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

, Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats) all of whom had been in power in Westminster and/or Holyrood, it was not until the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

(SNP) were in power that local MSP,

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...

then

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and Keith Brown then

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announced on 10 February 2011 that tenders for design works to upgrade the Inveramsay Bridge have been given the go-ahead. There are 1.5 kilometres of new road leading to the bridge. SuDS is in place at either end of the new part of the A96 leading to the bridge. The old bridge is still usable for local access. There is an underpass on the A96 to the south of the bridge which connects the old A96 to Inveramsay.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Transport Scotland, Inveramsay Bridge

Bridges in Aberdeenshire Transport in Aberdeenshire Bridges completed in 2016 2016 establishments in Scotland