Fears Cross Tay Link Road will not reduce congestion

Bridgend, Gannochy and Kinnoull Community Council (BGKCC) question impact

A community council suspects the much vaunted multi-million pound Cross Tay Link Road project won’t cut congestion in Perth as much as people hope.

The suspicion comes after it emerged during a briefing that Perth and Kinross Council only expects a few hundred fewer drivers will choose to drive through the city once the bridge is built.

Councillors and officials have said on many occasions one of the principal reasons the £118 million project is being progressed is it will provide people an alternative route around the city and therefore alleviate congestion in the city centre and Bridgend.

But slides recently shown to members of Bridgend, Gannochy and Kinnoull Community Council (BGKCC) reveal Perth and Kinross Council only expects 350 fewer people will motor along Main Street during the afternoon peak period when the CTLR is finally finished and open in 2023.

The slides show PKC thinks if the CTLR isn’t built as many as 4700 people might end up driving down Main Street during this period every day by 2023, but if it is built this would drop to 4350 - a mere seven per cent.

Discussing that figure the community council’s vice chair Dave Beattie told the PA: “That’s not a very high number.

"I challenged PKC on this number and pointed out even with this reduction the total traffic load in Bridgend is predicted to be higher in 2023 than it is today.

"They didn’t agree with me but did say they could see my point.

"So now there’s a serious concern when the bridge is built Bridgend is going to end up with even more traffic going through it.”

Quizzed about the above figure a PKC spokesperson responded: “The transport appraisal for the CTLR has highlighted at Bridgend a PM peak period reduction of seven per cent on Main Street, whereas the AM peak period captures a reduction of around 20 per cent.

"While this might appear low, these reductions should be taken in context: with the CTLR in place, there would be a significant reduction in queues and delays predicted on the A93 and A94.

"Consequently, less rat-running is also predicted to occur with commuter traffic returning to the principal road network, and coming out of the residential area roads in Bridgend, Gannochy and Kinnoull.

“The CTLR then not only reduces traffic volumes on the A85, against a background of wider traffic growth, but also solves an identified problem of rat-running traffic through the wider Bridgend area.

“Overall, there are large daily reductions predicted in traffic volumes across the city as a whole, and the wider Bridgend area will benefit with the CTLR in place.

"In addition, as a result of reduced traffic volumes through the Bridgend junction, which will always be a key point in the city’s transport network, the overall operation of the junction is predicted to improve with reduced queueing on the approaches during peak periods, minimising the currently experienced delays and blocking back through the junction.”