Capacity
Around the same time that the bridge was freed from toll, heavier vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine were making their way onto the roads. The slender cast iron span of Cleveland Bridge required reinforcement. Major steelwork was inserted under the roadway around 1929, giving it the strength which today allows it to carry 38 tonne trucks. Bath has no eastern bypass, so the bridge has become a heavily used "Euro route" for large trucks on their way from Britain's south coast ports to the docks further north. High volumes of local traffic at peak travelling times make this a regular traffic slow spot in the mornings and evenings. All told, over 17,000 vehicles use the bridge each day between 7am and 7pm. Inevitably, accidental strikes to the bridge occur every few months as heavy trucks misjudge the narrow roadway or try to pass each other.
Read more about this topic: Cleveland Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word capacity:
“Has the art of politics no apparent utility? Does it appear to be unqualifiedly ratty, raffish, sordid, obscene, and low down, and its salient virtuosi a gang of unmitigated scoundrels? Then let us not forget its high capacity to soothe and tickle the midriff, its incomparable services as a maker of entertainment.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“It is part of the educator’s responsibility to see equally to two things: First, that the problem grows out of the conditions of the experience being had in the present, and that it is within the range of the capacity of students; and, secondly, that it is such that it arouses in the learner an active quest for information and for production of new ideas. The new facts and new ideas thus obtained become the ground for further experiences in which new problems are presented.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)
“Our capacity to retaliate must be, and is, massive in order to deter all forms of aggression.”
—John Foster Dulles (1888–1959)