Humber Bridge

Humber Bridge
The Humber Bridge, Lincolnshire/East Yorkshire
Coordinates	53°42′23″N 0°27′01″W / 53.7064°N 0.4502°W / 53.7064; -0.4502Coordinates: 53°42′23″N 0°27′01″W / 53.7064°N 0.4502°W / 53.7064; -0.4502
Carries	4 lanes of motor traffic (A15), pedestrian/cycleway either side
Crosses	Humber
Locale	Hessle, East Riding of Yorkshire/North Lincolnshire
Maintained by	The Humber Bridge Board
Characteristics
Design	Suspension
Total length	2,220 m (7,280 ft; 1.38 mi)
Height	155.5m (510 ft)
Longest span	1,410 m (4,626 ft)
History
Construction cost	£98,000,000 £151,000,000 including interest at completion
Opened	To traffic on 24 June 1981 Officially on 17 July 1981
Statistics
Daily traffic	120,000 vehicles per week
Toll	Car: £1.50 HGV: £12.00 Motorcycle: Free
Humber Bridge Location in Northern England

The Humber Bridge, near Kingston upon Hull, England, is a 2,220-metre (7,280 ft) single-span suspension bridge, which opened to traffic on 24 June 1981. It was the longest of its type in the world when opened, and is now the eighth-longest. It spans the Humber (the estuary formed by the rivers Trent and Ouse) between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Hessle on the north bank, connecting the East Riding of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. When it opened in 1981 both sides of the bridge were in the non-metropolitan county of Humberside until its dissolution in 1996. The bridge itself can be seen for miles around and as far as Patrington in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

As of 2006^[update], the bridge carried an average of 120,000 vehicles per week. The toll was £3.00 each way for cars (higher for commercial vehicles), which made it the most expensive toll crossing in the United Kingdom. As of 1 April 2012, the toll was reduced to £1.50 each way after the UK government deferred £150 million from the bridge's current debt.

Before the bridge opening, commuters would go from one bank to the other either by using the Humber Ferry that ran between Corporation Pier at Hull and New Holland Pier at New Holland, Lincolnshire or by driving via the M62 (from 1976), M18 (from 1979) and M180 motorways, crossing the River Ouse near Goole (connected to the Humber) in the process. Until the mid-1970s, the route south was via the single-carriageway A63 and the A614 road (via grid-locked Thorne where it met the busy A18 and crossed the Stainforth and Keadby Canal at a swing bridge bottleneck, and then on through Finningley and Bawtry, meeting the east-west A631 road).