Month: November 2018

The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol was initially designed by the celebrated engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in 1830, when Brunel was only 24. Due to various financial problems, there were many interruptions to the building schedule and it eventually stopped with only the end towers completed.

Brunel died in 1859. Two other engineers ~ William Barlow (1812-1902) and Sir John Hawkshaw (1811-91) ~ brought the design up-to-date and the Institution of Civil Engineers raised enough money to have the bridge’s construction re-started. Chains from Brunel’s bridge at Hungerford, which was being demolished, were purchased for re-use and the Clifton Suspension Bridge was finally finished in 1864.

It is, perhaps, Bristol’s main tourist attraction. It is 702 feet long and 249 feet above the high-water level of the River Avon below.

(Image: John Winder at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

The first motorway in Britain was opened in 1959 and since then, the country has seen more motorways and more traffic than was ever envisaged. Smart motorways are an attempt to ease traffic flow in the most cost-effective way. However, they have a major downside.

Motorways generally have three lanes and a hardshoulder – a lane on the left for emergency use only, whose foundations are not designed for regular traffic. Since 2006 the Highways Agency has gradually been re-building hardshoulders in order to give four lanes for traffic without having to acquire extra land.

Stopping for emergencies is now restricted to ‘refuge areas’, provided the driver is lucky enough to be near one, as they are spaced 1.5 miles apart. The breakdown services, such as the RAC and the AA, will only come out to assist if you are parked in one of these refuge areas. They will not come to your rescue if you break down in a lane, as it is much too dangerous. Smart motorways are therefore a highly controversial introduction, requiring more Highways patrols and more surveillance cameras.

However, due to widely-expressed safety concerns, in 2023 the Government directed the Highways Agency to cancel the roll-out of more smart motorways.

(Top image: Department of Transport at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)