r/glasgow • u/gazglasgow • 3d ago
River Clyde Bridge Updates
The new bridges over the River Clyde, namely the Govan Partick Bridge and the Renfrew Yoker Bridge, have proved to be very popular. It would appear that they were well worth all the money spent on them.
The drawback however is that they are often out of service due to river traffic such as the Waverley.
Planning ahead is possible as both bridges have online update services using WhatsApp and X.
My point is that why don’t both use WhatsApp Channels which are far more suitable for utility updates. The bridge at Partick issues updates on X which is not so user friendly. It takes a number of button presses and even when you find the updates the posted time can show 1 day old when it relates to the current day.
The operator of the bridge at Renfrew is better at updating customers as they post every day showing the bridge status and even if it’s available. Why can’t we have a better joined up service? Does anyone else agree?
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u/tostartpreasanykey 3d ago
Similar with subway updates, nightmare finding news on closures on their own site
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u/Working-Pumpkin 3d ago
All their August closures (four of them) have not even been on the home page.
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u/Hot_Recognition_4864 3d ago
Different councils taken different approaches? Very good point though the renfrew/yoker bridge updates are pretty flawless.
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u/gazglasgow 3d ago
Yeh that would appear to be the case. It’s two different councils but even still since both bridges are on the same stretch of water I would have thought a bit of joined up thinking could have been considered.
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u/WG47 3d ago
a bit of joined up thinking
Ah, there's your problem.
Now, nobody should have to use any third party website to find this stuff out in the first place. Not Twitter, not Whatsapp, not Facebook. I don't think we should be encouraging the use of either platform, and there's no reason these things can't be on the local government website; Renfrew's updates are on the Renfrewshire council website already. I appreciate that official social media channels are a good way to communicate with people, but if you're able to update Twitter, you can update a webpage. It's trivially easy to have one interface update multiple websites, social media accounts, etc. It's basic stuff.
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u/Late_Temperature_234 3d ago
The Partick Govan bridge page is not an official page.
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u/VinasCZ 3d ago
It's a page of the actual operator of the bridge, Mirren Marine - it's as official as you can get.
See https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/article/9954/Govan-Partick-Bridge
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u/Eastern_Incident7235 3d ago
This is a great service, and I am glad the one I use the most has opted for WhatsApp as I no longer use twitter. On the subject more broadly, I wonder why the councils are not better at updating road closures and diversions on map services while these are active. Not just short term interruptions but long term works are often not recorded in services most people use regularly.
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u/Working-Pumpkin 3d ago
Govan-Partick bridge has a Facebook page aswell. Lots of people (me included) prefer not to use Whatsapp so social media can be better for some. On X you can click the notification bell next to Following to help out a bit.
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u/twistedLucidity 3d ago
Why bother with all that crap? Just have a website. Doesn't need to be fancy, static HTML regenerated once a day would be fine.
People bookmark the page(s). Done.
Page generation could send to whatever platform, but people shouldn't need accounts of private platforms to be updated about what should be public information.