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:
“The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-itiveness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”
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—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)