Let's hope lessons were learned from road chaos

HERE’S not many of us who relish Monday mornings.

It follows a weekend away from the grindstone (for most of us, at least) and marks the start of the working week for the vast majority of folk in regular nine-to-five jobs.

Suffice to say that most Ross-shire commuters heading to work by road in Inverness don’t really need any extra reasons to feel grouchy on Monday mornings. The smooth flow south from most parts of the county is typically punctuated by a staccato progression into the city on the approach to the Kessock Bridge at peak hours.

Drivers and those being borne on the buses had the mother and father of all reasons to be grumpy this particular Monday morning with four-mile tailbacks taking the best part of two hours to clear. This was on account of some roadworks, ironically aimed at alleviating the impact of long-signalled Kessock Bridge maintenance work, which had overrun.

While the appearance of the Kessock Bridge for northbound traffic is a symbol for many that they’re almost home, many this Monday must have been sick of the sight of it.

Scotland Transerv, the operating company with responsibility for the trunk road network in this part of the country, did the right thing when the extent of the problem became apparent: it held up its hands, apologised and promised to learn from the "unforeseen problems" which had been encountered in the roadworks.

The whole affair showed again our enormous dependence on a trunk road network which is highly susceptible to weather events and unforeseen hitches of the type witnessed this week.

Opportunities to establish a meaningful park and ride facility on the Ross-shire side of the vital link were dismissed by transport chiefs a year ago. The £1million cost (no one was entirely sure where that came from) was deemed excessive. Mitigation plans announced instead included the roadworks responsible for this week’s fun and games.

If this week’s manic Monday doesn’t focus minds on the four-month programme of works due to start in less than a month, nothing will. To be fair, plans have also been laid to provide extra seats on trains while the Transition Black Isle liftshare scheme was given a major and unexpected boost as a direct result of this week’s shenanigans.

Will we be enticed out of our cars, thus helping the aforementioned sustainability group meet an ambitious target of slashing road use by private car?

Perhaps that will be the silver lining from Blue Monday.