THE CASH GAP WIDENS

This article presents evidence that the 1987 assessment of highway bridges and structures may have underestimated significantly some of the costs involved in renovating old metal bridges in the UK. The Department of Transport (dtp) has shown no signs of providing local authorities with additional funds for upgrading these and other bridges. Legal opinion has suggested that local highway authorities will also be responsible for upgrading to new standards the road bridges owned by transport undertakings. A survey by a working party of bridge owners' representatives found that 3390 of the estimated 11260 sub-standard bridges belonged to British rail, British waterways board, and London regional transport. British rail has 2860 of these bridges, of which 2170 are metal bridges, which are much more expensive to repair. The cost of strengthening British rail's bridges alone is approaching 270 m, compared with the 178 m cost for all local highway authority bridges. Even before the legal opinion on their responsibility for transport undertaking bridges, the highway authorities were becoming seriously worried about their ability to bring their older bridge stock up to the standard given in the dtp assessment code, bd 21/84 (see IRRD 812111), introduced in March 1984 to enable older, short-span road bridges to take 38-ton lorries. Several local authorities have had difficulty assessing what work is needed on their bridges, and some even fear that some of their bridges may have to be restricted or closed, due to lack of money. Some examples are given of bridge repair and improvement prospects in London and Yorkshire. (TRRL)

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00396303
• Corporate Authors:

  Reed Business Information, Limited

  Quadrant House, The Quadrant
  Brighton Road
  Sutton, Surrey  United Kingdom  SM2 5AS
• Authors:
  • Rose, M
• Publication Date: 1988-4-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 10-13
• Serial:
  • SURVEYOR
  • Volume: 169
  • Issue Number: 4989
  • Publisher: Hemming Group, Limited
  • ISSN: 0039-6303

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Local government agencies; Metal bridges; Repairing
• Geographic Terms: United Kingdom
• ITRD Terms: 224: Cost; 192: Local authority; 3465: Metal bridge; 3635: Repair; 8119: United Kingdom
• Subject Areas: Finance; Maintenance and Preservation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00499182
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL)
• Files: ITRD, TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 30 1990 12:00AM