With this month marking five years since work started to lay the foundations for the new Walton Bridge, it has been revealed that thousands more vehicles are using the structure than the crossing it replaced.
Around 30,000 vehicles are using the £32 million bridge between Walton-on-Thames and Shepperton every weekday, which is 4,000 more than used its predecessor.
The first car crossed Walton Bridge on 22 July 2013. Click image to download.
The figures come from county council traffic surveys of the average number of vehicles using the bridges in 2010 and 2015 over a 12-hour period on weekdays.
Walton’s crossing, which took 18 months to build, opened on time and on budget on 22 July 2013 with the first car crossing at 5.45am.
John Furey, Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways, said: “Surrey has some of the busiest roads in the country and they are under immense strain – these figures are further proof of that.
“We already knew that we have some of the slowest rush-hour roads of any county in the country and getting the whole of Surrey’s road network into a good condition would cost around £460m.
“With good quality roads playing a vital role in stimulating growth and Surrey and the South East being the engine room of the country’s economy, it makes sense for our highways to get the funding needed to ensure businesses continue to thrive for the benefit of the nation.”
Department for Transport figures in 2015 confirmed Surrey has the slowest rush-hour roads of any county in the country with average speeds dipping as low as 14 miles per hour.
The county council also revealed that it would cost nearly £460m to bring every Surrey road up to the condition of those improved through its Operation Horizon scheme to resurface hundreds of miles of the county’s network.
Watch a timelapse video of Walton Bridge being built in just three minutes below.
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