A55 road

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The A55 at Warren Mountain

The A55, also known as the North Wales Expressway, is a major road in Britain. Its entire length is a dual carriageway primary route, with the exception of the point where it crosses the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait. All junctions are grade separated except for two roundabouts — one east of Penmaenmawr and one in Llanfairfechan. The road originally ran from Chester to Bangor but was extended parallel to the A5 across Anglesey right into Holyhead Docks in 2001. The road improvements have been part funded with European money, under the Trans-European Networks programme, as the route is designated part of Euroroute E22 (Holyhead - Leeds - Amsterdam - Hamburg - Malmö - Riga - Moscow - Perm - Ekaterinburg - Ishim).

[edit] Route

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[edit] The Chester Southerly Bypass

The A55 runs west from its junction with the M53 motorway near Chester, where it is known as the Chester Southerly Bypass, crossing the River Dee and the Welsh border before passing close to Broughton then passing north of Buckley and Northop. There is a major climb westbound between Broughton and Buckley (Junctions 35a to 35) though with no crawler lane. There is a difficult junction with the A494 at Junction 34/33b and the road briefly has a three lane section as traffic joins from Queensferry and leaves towards Mold. In the eastbound direction there is also a short three lane section for the same reason. There is also a 270 degree speed limited curve to climb up and over the A55/A494. There are plans that may affect this often congested junction as part of the A494 Queensferry to Ewloe improvement [1].

[edit] Ewloe to Colwyn Bay

Climbing up Rhuallt hill eastwards.

From Ewloe, the road climbs up onto the flanks of Halkyn Mountain passing to the south of Holywell with major climbs between Northop and Halkyn (Junctions 33 and 32b) and Halkyn and Holywell Summit (Junctions 32 and 31). This section of road is notorious for poor weather conditions including fog, ice and snow in winter months. In fine weather this section provides extensive views over the Dee estuary to the Wirral Peninsula, Liverpool and beyond. The steep descent towards St Asaph is down the new Rhuallt Hill (Junctions 29 to 28), which also provides the first views of the mountains of Snowdonia in the distance. There is a crawler lane on Rhuallt Hill for eastbound traffic. The road bypasses St Asaph to the north and runs along the North Wales coast passing Abergele

[edit] Colwyn Bay Bypass

Part of the route (Junction 23) Llandulas to (Junction 17) Conwy is signed as a 70 mph (110 km/h) speed limit (as opposed to most of the other sections of the A55, which are the National Speed Limit) and is a non-motorway special road, which has restrictions on access by pedestrian and other traffic, similar to the restrictions applied to a motorway. There is also a stretch passing through Colwyn Bay (Old Colwyn to Mochdre) signed as a 50 mph (80 km/h) limit. These restrictions are imposed as added safety precautions because the slip-roads in this stretch are unusually short because of the difficulty of fitting the road into a very narrow area of land, and, due to the road underpassing much of the town, to reduce road surface noise levels.

[edit] The Conwy Tunnel

Approaching the tunnel from the west.

The crossing of the estuary of the River Conwy is by means of an immersed tube tunnel that was constructed as pre-formed concrete sections and then floated into position over a pre-prepared trench in the bed of the estuary. The use of a tunnel followed an extensive public consultation which ruled out another bridge on aesthetic ground since it would have damaged the view of the world heritage site Conwy Castle and the two bridges by Robert Stephenson and Thomas Telford. Because of the valuable fishery in the river and also because of the history of heavy metal mining in the catchment of the river, extensive ecological assements were made both prior to the construction of the tunnel and subsequently. These studies finally concluded that no significant environmental damage had been caused. Another alternative bridge crossing was proposed at Deganwy but this too was ruled out for aesthetic reasons. An inland alternative with heavy grades, following the old Roman road, was also worked up as part of the Collcon Feasibility Studies but rejected for cost and utility reasons.

[edit] Penmaenmawr and Penmaenbach tunnels

An easterly view of the A55 at Penmaenmawr with the North Wales Coast Railway on the seaward side. The Penmaenbach Tunnels are in the distance. Barrie Hughes

The construction of the coastal section of the road involved major civil engineering works, with hard rock tunnels passing through the cliffs in two places. In the Eastbound direction, the road still uses the 1930s cliffhugging route. The eastbound carriageway at Penmaenbach is subject to a 30 mph (50 km/h) speed limit due to sharp curves. Plans to rectify this by building another tunnel parallel to the current Westbound tunnel (as orignially intended when the westbound was proposed) have been discussed for several years. The original Telford road around the cliffs is now a cycleway at both locations.

[edit] Llanfairfechan to Anglesey

The rest of the route is of lower standard than that of those further east. This is due to much traffic leaving for major holiday destinations such as Rhyl or Llandudno. As such part of the route is not classed as clearway and has two at grade junctions. The Bangor bypass, in which the road previously terminated and became the A5 regains high standards and is such through the Anglesey bypass, bar the Britannia Bridge, which is a single carriageway deck above the North Wales Coast railway over the Menai Strait. This section intersects with the A487 towards Caernarfon, and the west coast of Wales.

[edit] Anglesey

Looking east along the road in Anglesey with the mountains of Snowdonia in the background.

The final section of the A55 to be dualled was the Anglesey section. This 20 mile (32 km) section extending right into Holyhead Harbour was constructed as Private Finance Initiative scheme where the builders, a Carillion / John Laing joint venture, earn a shadow toll based on usage and lane availability. They also have to maintain the road for the extended period of their shadow toll agreement. When travelling eastbound along this section there are fine views of Snowdonia.

[edit] History

The A55 partly follows the alignment of the Roman road from Chester (Deva) to Caernarfon (Segontium), particularly from Junction 31 to 30 and Junction 13 to 12. Between Chester and Holywell the alignment of this road is uncertain and between St. Asaph and Aber, the Roman road followed an inland route avoiding the difficulties of the crossing of the Conwy estuary and the cliffs at Penmaenbach and Pen-y-Clip.

UK Roman Road Map

[edit] A55 Opening dates of major improvements

• Unknown date Ewloe to Northop avoiding Northop Hall
• Unknown date 1930s? Northop Bypass
• Unknown date 1930s? Holywell Bypass
• 1958 Conway new bridge avoiding Telford's suspension bridge
• Unknown date 1965? Llysfaen dualling
• 1932 Penmaenbach Tunnel
• 1935 Pen-y-Clip Tunnels
• 1930s St. Asaph to Rhuallt dual carriageway and a short section of 'experimental' concrete road west of St Asaph
• 1960s Tai'r Meibion to Tan-y-lon dual carriageway east of Bangor
• 1964? Ewloe roundabout (part of the A494 Drome Corner to Ewloe dualling, the 'Queensferry Bypass')
• 1970 St. Asaph Bypass
• 1975 Northop Hall Crossroads to East of Gables
• 1976 Coed-y-Cra to Chaingates (Holywell)
• 1976 Chester Southerly Bypass (terminating at Broughton)
• 1980 Britannia Bridge and link roads
• December 1980 Holywell By-Pass (Stage 1)
• March 1981 Diversion East of Abergele
• December 1983 Bangor By-Pass
• September 1984 Hawarden By-Pass (from a point east of Broughton on the Chester Southerly Bypass to Northop Hall)
• December 1984 Llanddulas to Glan Conwy (Colwyn Bay By-Pass, Stage 1)
• June 1985 Llanddulas to Glan Conwy (Colwyn Bay By-Pass, Stage 2)
• October 1986 Holywell By-Pass (Stage 2)
• December 1986 Bodelwyddan By-Pass
• June 1989 Penmaenbach Tunnel
• June 1989 Northop By-Pass
• October 1989 Penmaenmawr and Llanfairfechan By-Passes (excluding Pen-y-Clip Tunnel)
• May 1990 Travellers' Inn Improvement
• 1991 tunnel crossing of the River Conwy
• June 1991 Extension to M53
• May 1992 Rhuallt Hill Improvement
• October 1993 Pen-y-Clip Tunnel
• October 1994 Abergwyngregyn Improvement
• 16th March 2001 Anglesey section (Britannia Bridge to Holyhead)
• 2000/2004 Penmaenmawr eastbound slip road and grade separation at the summit of the Rhuallt Hill
• 2004 Improvements to railway underbridges and cliffs at Penmaenbach (eastbound)

[edit] Junctions

[edit] External links

• Traffic Wales
  • A55 webcams
  • A55 page
• SABRE Roaders Digest - A55
• Road to Nowhere: A55
• Images of diversion of North Wales Coast Railway at Colwyn Bay to accommodate A55
• BBC News - Engineers look at more A55 relief - 03/09/2004
• The Motorway Archive - A55
• Statutory Instrument No.2091 Rhuallt Hill Improvement and Slip Roads Order (1989)

	A roads in Zone 5 of the Great Britain road numbering system	edit
A5	A50 - A51 - A52 - A53 - A54 - A55 - A56 - A57 - A58 - A59
	A500 - A501 - A505 - A508 - A509 - A511 - A512 - A514 - A518 - A519
	A525 - A528 - A530 - A533 - A556 - A562 - A563 - A565 - A570 - A574 - A580 - A583
	A590 - A591 -A592 - A594 - A595 - A596 -
	A5012 - A5025 - A5036 - A5038
	A5103 - A5112 - A5117 - A5124 - A5127 - A5130
	A5183 - A5199 - A5300
	List of A roads in Zone 5