Guide to Bridges
A simple example of a bridge between two sides of a service station.

One of the most surprising aspects of service stations which we receive a lot of queries about is bridges. Perhaps this is because, while the interior of every service station has started to become indistinguishable from any shopping centre food court, the presence of a bridge over the motorway remains unique to the service area. The idea of your building being divided into two by a motorway is a unique architectural challenge, and offers visitors an unusual vantage point.

The structure of the bridge itself is owned by the highway authority - normally National Highways - while any building attached to it is maintained by the service station operator.

We have lists of:

Benefits of Bridges

Bridges are mainly provided for the benefit of the operator: they allow staff and stock to be easily moved from one side to the other. Having a bridge means you can avoid duplicating staff facilities, office space, storage space or even kitchen space, if space is an issue, and likewise deliveries will only need to make one drop-off.

In the early days, it was common to close the facilities on one side and ask customers to cross the bridge to the other. As the motorways were quieter, the government even encouraged service stations to save money by only building on one side. These days we tend to find that the basic facilities are provided on both sides, but a different line-up of brand names may be provided on each side and both advertised all around.

In 2016, Fleet southbound was destroyed by a fire. Access to the bridge wasn't damaged so Fleet was able to re-open almost immediately by directing customers to the bridge, which kept things going until a better solution was found.

Problems with Bridges

Building and removing bridges requires considerable negotiation between operators and highway authorities.

The main problem with bridges is that they are very difficult to build after the motorway has opened. Doing so requires several months of roadworks and at least one overnight closure. The highway authority will expect a considerable bill to be paid by the operator, who will usually conclude that it's not worth it.

Similarly, bridges can be difficult to maintain. Many motorway bridges were built in the early 1960s, and the highway authorities have enough work to do trying to maintain them all without having to cooperate with all the different service station operators too. Even basic maintenance like repainting could have an effect on the traffic below, while emergency repairs can be catastrophic. In 2010, Medway services had a broken window on its bridge, which required the M2 below to be completely closed.

Bridges quickly fell out of favour with customers too. They are psychological barriers: while most people would happily stroll around a few shops, they hate walking up stairs. If the customer has to walk up the stairs, and especially if they have to make a long walk along an empty and noisy bridge, by the time they get to the other end they have usually lost all interest in whatever it was they came for. As a result, facilities positioned on the bridges noticed a drop in trade. In addition, awareness of accessibility issues made working with a bridge more expensive, and that cost couldn't be justified.

Sometimes, the shape of the land means it's simply not possible to have two buildings directly opposite each other. Similarly, by the late 1970s, the preferred design was to position the main buildings far away from the motorway. These scenarios make adding a bridge difficult, especially once you try to provide a safe path between the building and the bridge.

The other point to consider is that as far as the operator is concerned, the best layout is to build offline (such as at a junction). This offers them all the benefits of a bridge, but with none of the drawbacks.

History: Why Bridges Were Provided

Knutsford was originally built entirely above the motorway. Not many were built like this.

See also: How To Design A Service Station

While we've outlined the advantages and disadvantages above, many of those were only discovered with hindsight.

When the first section of the M1 was built, 71 bridges were provided. The cost of including another four for the service areas was relatively tiny, and much less than going back later and fitting the bridges when the service stations were ready. This was decided with very little debate.

The first services were all experiments. Watford Gap didn't make much use of its bridge, though it did allow the southbound side to serve customers three weeks earlier. Newport Pagnell decorated their bridge and made it an integral part of the design, even though it didn't see much use. At Toddington, the bridge was a nuisance: it was built before the service area had been designed, and its position turned out to be very awkward and inconvenient.

Building Above The Motorway

Within the following few years, bridges became a bit of a fashion accessory. They helped architects to create unique and striking designs while the public relished the opportunity to stand and admire the fast-moving traffic.

This quickly led to the unusual, European-inspired design of having the entire building straddle the motorway. This looked impressive from the road and offered customers the novel experience of dining above the traffic. It's true that there was a fire at Keele in 1984 which caused problems for the M6 below, but that has nothing to do with why this design stopped being built. In truth, it was only a fashion trend, and once a few had been built people lost interest. One minister commented that bridge-restaurants were distracting for drivers below, which may have encouraged developers to find a new design.

The five services with facilities above the motorway are: Charnock Richard, Knutsford, Keele, Leicester Forest East and Medway (Farthing Corner). They were all built between 1963 and 1966, and after that the priority became building things cheaply. These five cover some of the UK's oldest, and therefore busiest, motorways, which may be why the unusual layout is so well remembered.

Cover It Up Rule

Covered footbridges are never as appealing as the rest of the service area.

In the following few years, operators would normally give their bridges a shelter, for customer and staff convenience. Despite the appearance of a roof and walls, this shelter was much less robust than a proper building, often causing the bridge to feel cold and damp. The structure was designed to stand without maintenance, rather than to feel warm. Wind and the effect of passing traffic make the bridges seem even more unnerving.

As the motorway network began to expand into quieter regions, lack of traffic became a major problem for new service areas. The Ministry established a rule where a service area could provide virtually no facilities on one side, on condition that a short, covered walkway over the road was provided. Whole studies were done into which side of the motorway should get the facilities, and formulas produced (although they were probably never used).

Forton and Washington were early examples of this. Southwaite took it much further. Now that Southwaite has been expanded to provide facilities on both sides, the covered footbridge between the two car parks seems a bit odd.

Footbridges would continue to be provided by the Ministry, but increasingly they wouldn't be connected to the main building.

Going Without A Bridge

Between the opening of the first service areas in 1960 and the change to the planning process in 1992, the only ones to open without a bridge were:

We are excluding from this list service areas which were only serving one side of the motorway (Tebay was initially built like this), or service areas which were positioned at a junction. The latter became increasingly popular during the 1980s, and made up the vast majority of the Department of Transport's new service area proposals.

In the 1960s, the roads, car parks, bridges and landscaping at motorway services were built under the same contract that was built to use the motorway itself. This allowed motorway service areas to open on the same day as the motorway. By the 1970s, the two contracts had been separated, causing the service areas to open after the motorway. If the exact position of a service area was known while the motorway was being designed, the bridge would be built with the motorway. This happened at Sandbach and Fleet, where for a few years a bridge connected two fields. More often than not, the position of the service area would not be known, so a bridge would not be built.

In 1992, the government stopped having any involvement in new service area proposals. This means that there is little chance of a new motorway service area bridge ever being built (and no new footbridges have been built since then).

Trading from service area bridges was banned for new-builds in the 2008 regulations. This rule was lifted in 2013, but it would still be difficult to build a new restaurant above a busy motorway.

Unusually, Transport Scotland invested heavily in replacing the footbridge at Heart of Scotland in 2008, to encourage its use as a park-and-ride facility.

Removing Bridges

The bridge at Northampton looks suspended in the air, as it has been locked out of use.

Now that all service areas provide the main facilities on both sides of the bridge, the bridges are generally redundant. Most continue to be used as they are doing no harm, but some have been closed:

Some other bridges which once plugged directly into the amenity building at each end no longer do this, to suit refurbishment projects. This happened at Birch and Woodall.

The Roads For Prosperity White Paper of 1989 announced plans to widen many motorways. With little experience at the time, the authorities initially suggested that many motorway service area bridges would need to be demolished, in some cases taking some of the buildings with them. In the event, these projects were all either cancelled or squeezed through in the space available, but that can only be done once. If the M1 is ever widened again (as is occasionally proposed), Leicester Forest East would need to be demolished.

A-roads

As A-road services are planned largely by the private sector, it's very rare that a pedestrian footbridge will be included by the plan. Sutton Scotney (built 1986, after the road) is a good example of this not happening.

The more remarkable examples are official A-road service areas where bridges have been provided. Barnsdale Bar, Easington and Stoke Rochford are three, but all have since been removed. It's likely that they required a lot of maintenance and that the highway authority didn't see that the cost and disruption could be justified.

Alternatives To A Bridge

At Medway, once you're inside, you'd barely notice you were crossing the motorway.

Sometimes a motorway will be built on an embankment, slightly above the height of the ground. To keep costs down, the service area will be built at ground level, and a subway will be provided instead of a bridge. This was suggested in a few places, but only Rownhams and Burtonwood ever got one. A few more were built but never used, like at Hatfield.

Many service areas are connected by a road bridge positioned outside their boundary. These aren't supposed to be for public use but sometimes get used a lot anyway. At Gloucester, a public footpath leading to that bridge means that there technically is a pedestrian route available, albeit a long one.

The most interesting design is Medway. Here, the motorway is in a cutting well below the height of the ground, and the service area wasn't lowered to match it. As a result, the building is positioned much higher than the motorway, and is able to cross it with a simple, elegant stride. The fact that low traffic levels mean the building hasn't really been expanded makes it even more pleasing: it doesn't have any clunky extensions which sprawl out on one side, and instead it really does look like one building which just happens to have a motorway running beneath it.

A step-free layout like Medway could have been provided at many other service areas, by being a little more flexible with the landscaping. After all it makes no difference to the cars whether the car park is positioned at the top of a hill. Unfortunately, as explained above, bridges and landscaping were paid for by the government, in an era where there was little understanding of accessibility or customer behaviour, so they preferred the cheapest and easiest layout.

Medway is the only example in the UK of a design which is built above the motorway, but without any interior or major exterior flights of stairs being involved. There are all sorts of unusual examples across Europe, including one striking example near Nivelles in Belgium where the main building acts as both a bridge above the motorway and a canopy for the two petrol stations.

Consequences of a Bridge

Until recently, bridges had legal consequences.

Government regulations limited the size of shopping and gaming areas at service stations. In the 1990s, there was confusion about whether these restrictions were applied to the whole complex, to each side individually, or whether the bridge made a difference. The Highways Agency took the position that it applied to the whole complex, while many councils disagreed. In 2008, the rules were clarified, and the Highways Agency stated that if the size limits were exceeded, then any bridge or underpass must be taken out of public use and "removed at an appropriate time".

That wording is curious, as the Highways Agency appeared to be encouraging the removal of bridges, despite knowing such work would be a major inconvenience for them.

MSO Wet Weather Rule

If the walkway isn't completely covered, we record the facilities separately.

For some customers, walking up the stairs and over the bridge is no big deal, while for others it's an inconvenience or even a total obstacle. What matters is how long the walk is, how much time you have and how much you care about what's on the other side.

These factors make it difficult for a website like Motorway Services Online to provide a simple system that tells people whether the facility they are looking for is available or not: in some cases being told that it's across the bridge is as good as saying it's not available, while in other cases it may be no issue at all.

To keep things simple, we use the "wet weather rule". Say that you are heading northbound and the facility you want is on the southbound side. If the walk from one side to the other is entirely covered, we record the facility as available, with no further detail needed. If the bridge isn't covered, the bridge takes you into the car park or the facility is outside the main building, we would record it as "southbound only". At the top of the page it explains if a footbridge is available.

The exceptions to this are Changing Places, which we would record as "southbound only" if any bridge was involved at all, and any hotel, which we would record as "southbound only" if there was no easy way to drive there from the other side.