A38 road
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The A38 is a major trunk road in England. Though formally known as the Exeter - Leeds Trunk Road, it actually runs from Bodmin in Cornwall to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. At 292 miles (470 km) long it is the longest 'A' road entirely within England, and in the United Kingdom as a whole second only to the A1.
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[edit] Route description
[edit] Bodmin to Birmingham
Starting from Bodmin, at a junction with the A30, the road runs through the Glynn Valley, then past Liskeard and Saltash, into Devon at the Tamar Bridge, through Plymouth (named 'The Parkway') and Buckfastleigh to Exeter. The section from Plymouth to Exeter is called the 'Devon Expressway', and serves as a southern extension of the M5 motorway. The current route just north of Plymouth, the 'Plympton bypass', was the location for the first stage of the Tour de France held in England, in 1974 before it was opened to traffic.
Exeter represents a second meeting point of the A38 with the A30 (historically they crossed each other in the city centre), a rare anomaly amongst major A-roads. A driver going from Bodmin to Exeter can therefore travel the entire route on either the A38 or the A30, although since the 1990s the latter is the usual choice as it involves more dual carriageway and avoids the city of Plymouth.
The modern A38 multiplexes with the M5 south of Exeter before re-emerging from a junction ten miles north of Exeter. From there it heads north via Wellington, Taunton, Bridgwater, Bristol, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Worcester, Bromsgrove and Birmingham. From Exeter to Birmingham, the road is paralleled by the M5, where the A38 has reverted to taking local traffic only. Near Bristol the road was recently diverted to cater for an extension of the runway at Bristol International Airport. Between Worcester and Birmingham the A38 follows the course of a Roman road (Icknield Street), or perhaps even a Celtic road, although the construction of bypasses around some towns means the modern-day route deviates somewhat from the original dead-straight road. The Roman encampment at Metchley (near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital) was not far from the course of the road; see Metchley - Birmingham's Roman Fort
The section in Birmingham called the Aston Expressway, from the north-eastern side of the Inner Ring Road through Aston to the junction with the M6 motorway at Gravelly Hill Interchange, better known as 'Spaghetti Junction', is a motorway, the A38(M).
[edit] Birmingham to Mansfield
From Birmingham the road bypasses Sutton Coldfield and Lichfield, before taking up the route of the Roman Ryknild Street (also spelt 'Icknield' or 'Rykneld') as far as Derby. This section of the route was improved to dual carriageway standard, including bypassing Burton upon Trent in 1968, and in recent years many of the at-grade junctions have been upgraded or stopped-up.
Originally terminating in Derby at the junction of Binghamtom Lane with St Peter's Street (formerly the A6), further improvements in the late 1960s and 1970s saw construction of the Mickleover by-pass to the south-west of Derby and an extension of the A38 northwards, crossing the M1 at Junction 28, and ending in Mansfield.
For nearly four miles, the A38 forms part of Derby's outer ring road, including three roundabouts (Kingsway or "Grand Canyon", Markeaton and Little Eaton or "Abbey Hill") which are infamous for causing peak time congestion. The section of road between Kingsway roundabout to just north of Markeaton is urban in nature and thus subject to a 40mph speed limit.
As a 1970s upgrade to the route of the A61 north of Derby (which became the B6179), the A38 bypasses Ripley passing through former opencast mining land, before joining end-on with the former A615 Alfreton bypass at Watchorn Intersection.
To the east of Junction 28 of the M1, the alignment of the road is relatively modern as the dangerous junction with Berristow Lane was improved to grade-separated in the late 1990s, incorporating access to a busy shopping centre. Into Nottinghamshire, the road by-passes Sutton in Ashfield with a woefully inadequate single carriageway configuration of 1980s construction, including multiple traffic light controlled junctions - the Mansfield, Ashfield Regeneration Route ("MARR") being one of them.
The final section of the A38 from Sutton, past King's Mill Hospital into Mansfield is purely urban in nature and is single carriageway, joining the A6009 in Mansfield Town Centre at the end of the route's epic journey through England.
[edit] See also
- A5127 — road following the former route of the A38 in north Birmingham.
[edit] External links
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A roads in Zone 3 of the Great Britain road numbering scheme |
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|---|---|---|
| A3 | A30 - A31 - A32 - A33 - A34 - A35 - A36 - A37 - A38 - A39 | |
| A301 - A303 - A307 - A308 - A316 - A337 - A338 - A340 - A344 - A345 - A346 - A350 - A354 | ||
| A361 - A363 - A368 - A369 - A370 - A371 - A390 | ||
| A3036 - A3055 - A3203 - A3204 - A3400 | ||
| List of A roads in Zone 3 | ||
