Runcorn Bridge

The first stage of disappointment everybody goes through with the Runcorn Bridge is as a child, when you realise you’re not going to drive right over the top like it’s some kind of zany rollercoaster. It’s a saddening letdown that never stops aching.
The present-​day version of this fizzling miscalculation is when you realise you’re not even going to get to drive across the bottom of it, on account of the fact it’s packed with grumbling, snarling, crawling traffic.
Opened in 1961 by Princess Alexandria (the same minor royal who cut the ribbon at the Royal Hospital), the Runcorn Bridge, or, to give it its correct name, the Silver Jubilee Bridge, once provided tremendous convenience before roadworks and congestion reduced it to little more than road rage dangling over water. Now it sits waiting for the proposed ‘Mersey Gateway’ toll bridge to be built and ease some of the perpetual crush.