ForthTAG

Possible Crossing Points Map

In 1992 the then Scottish Development Department launched a consultative document called “Setting Forth”. This document attempted to gather opinions on an alternative crossing of the Forth. The map opposite shows the routes under consideration. The solid and dotted red lines are for bridge solutions and the green solid and dotted are for tunnel solutions.

The document also discussed the various forms of bridge and tunnel solutions along with conceptual designs for a bridge solution on Route 6A.

ForthTAG has examined all of the routes shown on the above diagram and has discounted Routes 1A, 2, 3 and 4 as being too far west especially in the light of the recent contract award to build a bridge on Route 1B.

This new bridge will cater for traffic from the M90, via the Kinross junction, travelling west towards Glasgow and the M74. Routes 6B, 7, 8A and 8B were discounted as sites for a bridge due to their length and location. Route6A is close to the line of the bridge being proposed by FETA, the difference being that Route 6A proposed to use Beamer Rock as a Land fall in the centre of the river; this would have given a dual span bridge solution with spans of approximately 1.0km. FETA are now proposing a more expensive solution west of this location. The higher cost is mainly due to the increase in clear spanning the river with a proposed span of 1.4 km.

Map3

This leaves Route 5 which is near to the line of the tunnel solution being proposed by ForthTAG. Unlike Route 5, the tunnel route would cross on a line from east of Pattiesmuir on the north side of the river in a cutting, under the Forth in an ITT, connecting to bored tunnels on the south foreshore and on under Hopetoun Estate to exit portals near Winchburgh. This would linking the M90 via the Masterton junction along the proposed Rosyth Bypass to the M9 to the M9 near Winchburgh. (The Rosyth Bypass is part of Fife County Council’s strategic plan for the next ten years.) This solution would also allow a heavy rail link from the Edinburgh, Polmont, Glasgow line to connect with the Fife commuter lines at Dunfermline. This route could also be used for a light rail solution.

An Immersed Tube Tunnel solution, linking the M90 via a Rosyth Bypass to the M9, is the least environmentally damaging. This would cost a third of a new suspension bridge, and its location would enable the optimum traffic solution. If the abandoned Trident dry dock were to be used, a tunnel could be constructed three years earlier than a bridge.