• November 20, 2017

On Monday, September 4th the official opening ceremony for the Queensferry Crossing in Edinburgh, Scotland was held, marking a monumental occasion. After six years of being under construction, the first car traveled across the bridge on August 30th and five days later the bridge was closed one more time for the official opening ceremony. The festivities allowed 50,000 people to walk over the bridge and Queen Elizabeth II to perform the official ribbon cutting. This happened exactly 53 years to the day after the Queen also opened its neighboring bridge, the Forth Road Bridge.

This 8,639.5’ cable supported crossing of the Firth of Forth will go down in history as a record-breaking structure. Prior to the completion of the final closure sections on the deck, the balanced cantilevers were recorded as the longest ever by Guinness. It is also the longest three-tower, cable-stayed bridge in the world at 1.7 miles and the biggest infrastructure project in Scotland in a generation. It has the highest bridge towers in the UK at 689’ and a new world record was achieved in 2013 when the team performed the largest continuous underwater concrete pour, pouring 595,723 cubic feet of concrete into the water-filled south tower caisson non-stop in 24 hours.

The team, Forth Crossing Bridge Constructors (FCBC) which was comprised of Hochtief, American Bridge, Dragados, and Morrison, along with the subcontractors, clocked more than 10 million manhours during the six years of construction to complete this historical project.

The Queensferry Crossing will alleviate traffic from the Forth Road Bridge, which is projected to carry about 24 million vehicles per year, and has a life expectancy of 120 years. The Forth Road Bridge will remain in place and be available for cyclists, pedestrians, and buses to use.

Learn more about the project here.