Plans afoot to ease bridge woes

Dundee City Council has said it is considering ways to improve traffic flow after a lane closure caused severe congestion on the Tay Road Bridge.

It comes after frustrated commuters claimed more could be done to reduce the impact of the closure of one lane at the exit of the bridge, which merges on to River Esplanade.

The inside lane of the road is closed until the new year due to construction work at the V&A.

One motorist, Gillian Stirton, who regularly commutes to Invergowrie from Fife, says she and many other Tay Road Bridge users she has spoken to feel that drivers are being unnecessarily held up at traffic lights after coming off the bridge.

She claims that almost every time the bridge exit lights turned to green, the Slessor Gardens exit light turned to red, with not a single vehicle emerging from the gardens in the 15 minutes that she waited to pass through.

The council have said they are “making every effort” to ensure delays are minimised and are “investigating the potential to adjust traffic signal timings” in order to ease the vehicle flow.

The council asked drivers and cyclists for their patience during the closure and advised them to keep up to date with the works through their website and social media.

The problems come shortly before many more city centre side streets are shut off for two weeks, from Monday.