The body in charge of Scotland’s trunk roads network has been pilloried over long and unforeseen roadworks delays on one of Tayside’s busiest routes.
The M90 ground to an abrupt halt around 2pm on Saturday as lengthy queues of traffic approached the Friarton Bridge on the outskirts of Perth.
Motorists were stuck in long lines of traffic between the Broxden Roundabout and the Friarton Bridge with commuters stacking up in both directions as far back as Bridge of Earn and Kinfauns.
The chaos had a knock-on effect in Perth itself with traffic ground almost to a standstill around 2.45pm on Saturday in Tay Street and South Street as drivers attempted to dodge the roadworks.
The kick-off for the Irn Bru cup tie between Brechin and Dunfermline Athletic was delayed by 10 minutes with some reporting it had taken nearly two hours to get from the outskirts of Perth to Dundee.
David Griffiths, who was travelling from Inverness towards Perth, claimed there was a lack of warning about the bridge roadworks and blamed BEAR Scotland for failing manage the situation.
“None of the dot matrix signs between Inverness and the Inveralmond roundabout in Perth said a word about this,” he said.
“Luckily, I heard the roadworks being mentioned in a traffic report on the radio.
“Otherwise I’d have been sitting in the queue along with everyone else.
“Given the state of Scottish road surfaces it’s probably churlish to complain about resurfacing but there definitely was a lack of advance warning.”
Rachel McConachie was travelling from the Broxden roundabout on Saturday, and described the traffic delays as “horrendous.”
Meanwhile, Iain Waddell was driving from Perth to Errol and said this journey took him 90 minutes.
He said: “In that time I didn’t see a single police traffic car, but what annoyed me the most was that there was no work being done at this time – seems BEAR Scotland are only working during the night.
“Surely they should be working round the clock to finish this.”
A BEAR Scotland spokesperson apologised for the delays.
They said: “Saturday’s day shift finished work on their section of the road ahead of schedule between 3pm and 4pm, which meant there was a short break in between the nightshift work getting underway at 6.30pm.
“We understand there were some delays during Saturday afternoon and would like to apologise to road users for any inconvenience.
“These improvement works are currently on schedule to be completed by Monday morning ahead of peak travel times but as always, we encourage road users to check the Traffic Scotland website for real-time travel information ahead of setting out on their journey.”
Councillor Henry Anderson, for the Almond and Earn ward, said he witnessed the long queues of traffic, describing the chaos as “unfortunate.”
He said the incident such throws more weight to the argument for Perth to have the Cross Tay Link Road proposed as part of a major housing plan for the north of the city.
“The Cross Tay Link Road would give motorists another option,” he said.
“It was very unfortunate that many people got held up by this but this is the kind of roads infrastructure we have had around Perth since the 1980s.
“And then when the roads wear out we have to undergo resurfacing work such as this, which is not ideal and is part of a 24-hour ongoing process.”
Delays continued on Sunday as the roadworks stuttered to their conclusion on Monday morning.
