It has meant 26 months of queues and frustration for motorists on York's Inner Ring Road, but today it was finally coming to an end.

The £4.8 million scheme to build a new Layerthorpe Bridge in York was set to finish this afternoon, providing an easier, straighter crossing over the River Foss and restoring two lanes of traffic to Foss Islands Road and Fossbank.

But there was just one last jam today to remind drivers how bad things have been, as workmen busily applied the finishing touches, painting white lines, removing equipment and sweeping up.

They were pulling out the stops to ensure work had finished by the time delegates arrived for York's big Ecofin conference.

Bill Woolley, assistant director of environment and development services for City of York Council, said the new traffic lights were expected to be switched on by 4pm.

Some remaining work, such as painting amenity lighting and rails, laying a pavement on the corner near Allied Carpets and cladding the bridge, would be completed next week.

The council is stressing that the scheme will make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists as well as easier for motorists.

Reporter Maxine Gordon took one last journey through the road works today.

It was frustrating to say the least, she writes.

During the rush hour, it was chaos as usual as motorists gritted their teeth - just one last time - and queued nose-to-tail around the ring road at Foss Island.

Workmen in hardhats were clearly facing a race against time to finish the works in time for the arrival of all the Euro VIPs for Ecofin.But for this one last trip, a two-mile loop round the ring road, it was at a snail's pace crawl, taking 15 minutes to cover only two miles.

A bridge too far

The first warning of trouble ahead came in an innocuous-looking document called Transport Policies and Programmes, published 14 years ago.

The county council blueprint warned that Layerthorpe Bridge was really a bridge too far gone. Its structural condition was deteriorating and this, coupled with its poor vertical and horizontal alignment, justified re-building.

It was another eight years before a definite £3 million scheme to replace Layerthorpe Bridge was agreed by transport chiefs, and there were then strong objections at a public inquiry, partly because of the impact on rivercraft of headroom reductions.

But, eventually, work started on what had by now become a £4 million scheme, in JANUARY, 1996.

Remember those days? Someone called John Major was Prime Minister, Dolly was a child's toy rather than a cloned sheep and, as for a Spice Girl, well, that would have been someone stacking shelves on Tesco's Indian cuisine section.

York councillors wanted to replace one bendy, hump-backed bridge with two straighter, flatter, safer bridges, one of them linking Fossbank directly with Layerthorpe and Foss Islands Road for the first time.

There were media predictions of traffic chaos. The council hoped this would not materialise, saying two-way traffic would be maintained almost throughout. It also hoped the work would finish within 20 months.

And were they right? Well, there were certainly endless queues, particularly along Foss Islands Road, and the scheme took several months longer than expected.

In FEBRUARY, 1996, the Evening Press reported that the sorry prospect for motorists in Fossbank was "jams today, jams tomorrow," following the loss of a lane on the dual carriageway and re-timing of traffic lights at the bridge.

Then work took a noisier turn for the worse when preliminary piling began on new foundations.

In MARCH, a stretch of the Foss was closed to traffic because of the work and congestion worsened because the width of the existing bridge was halved to give contractors more space.

In NOVEMBER, the council warned that a new phase of work, involving demolition of the existing bridge, would worsen delays.

By JANUARY, 1997, it was becoming apparent that the scheme might be delayed because of the discovery of medieval remains below, and completion was eventually put back to March, 1998.

In JULY, the final phase led to the closure of one lane in Foss Islands Road to build a new river retaining wall, worsening delays.

In FEBRUARY, 1998, the whole bridge was closed for just over 24 hours and other delays were then caused by re-surfacing and other final tasks.

The "bridge of sighs" was finally expected to be free of cones, jams, diggers, piledrivers and workmen at 3pm today and ready to carry York's traffic through the 21st century.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.