|
|
Status
|
Construction scheme
(completed) |
|
Where
|
To
upgrade the A26 Ballymena Road in Antrim
town to dual-carriageway at Junction One
retail park, north to Kilbegs Road. |
|
Total
Length
|
0.40 km / 0.25 miles
|
|
Dates
|
First proposed - 1960s
Scheme completed - Summer 2004
|
|
Cost
|
Unknown - privately
funded
|
|
Photos/Maps
|
See below |
|
See
Also
|
General
Area Map - Google Maps
A26
Ballymena Road dualling, Antrim Phase 2
- on this site
|
The A26 Ballymena Road is the main access into
the town from the north. In the mid 1960s, it was
planned that this road would be upgraded to a
grade-separated dual-carriageway. However, in
keeping with much of the plan for Antrim, this did
not occur and the road remained a two-lane
single-carriageway until after the Millennium.
In 2004, the massive
Junction One Outlet Centre opened on the A26
Ballymena Road. Presumably as a condition of
planning permission, this required the upgrading
of the road to dual-carriageway standard.
According to this
document, the central 400 metre stretch
(from the existing Stiles Road roundabout north to
Niblock Road) was completed in the summer of 2004.
This was constructed entirely offline by adding a
second carriageway beside the first. The fact that
the stretch ends more or less where the Junction
One site ends suggests that the upgrade was
limited to the stretch that literally adjoined
Junction One. (An additional 730 metres was
dualled in 2006 - see link to Phase 2 above.)
This Google Maps
overlay shows the stretch upgraded in Phase 1.
Photos
These are all links to Google Streetview.
1. The
new dual-carriageway seen from Stiles Road
roundabout. The left side was the new
carriageway, while the one on the right is the
original single-carriageway road.
2. The
same stretch seen from the northern end. The
dual-carriageway ended around here from 2004 until
it was extended to Kilbegs Road in late 2006.
|
