I like a moan with the best of them but I have had more cause to chuckle at the stuff people have decided to get on their soapbox about over the last week in relation to the opening of the Queensferry Crossing.
For me, it was a simple equation on Wednesday morning. Massive new bridge opens, plus plenty of public interest, equals likely to be busier than usual.
Lo and behold that’s exactly what happened.
Yet we still had folk moaning about a breakdown near the crossing at rush hour, a half hour journey taking around two hours, and others questioning why the existing Forth Road Bridge was not open as well to ease congestion.
I’m sure sitting in that queue of traffic was far from pleasant but perhaps people needed to get some semblance of perspective before taking to Twitter or Facebook to vent their spleen.
A lorry broke down — it wasn’t the bridge’s fault. And the driver of said lorry had managed to get across to the hard shoulder to minimise problems.
A half hour journey took around two hours. Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but when you’ve got a £1.3 billion bridge opening, people will want to drive over it.
Add that into the normal flow of commuter traffic and it’s going to cause tailbacks. If drivers didn’t expect it, maybe the problem is one of their own naivety.
And as for why the existing Forth Road Bridge wasn’t open at the same time, it’s very obvious. If it had been open then the chaos we saw on Wednesday would have been ten-fold.
We also then had the usual political point scoring, back slapping and sniping across social media over the Queensferry Crossing which was tiresome when delays to the project were announced months ago and haven’t got any less tiresome now.
There are bigger issues in the world to worry about.
Now The Queen has performed the formal opening, the furore will die down and the curiosity factor will inevitably wear off as people on both sides of the Forth get back to normality.
I’ve said it before: it’s an engineering marvel that we should be proud of, not simply another source of irritation.
I’d rather the new bridge has that familiar “budummph, budummph, budummph” sound when you drive over like the old one did.
But I’m sure I’ll get over it.
