A80 road (Great Britain)

UK road routebox
road= A80
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direction= West-East
start= Glasgow
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end= Stirling
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junctions= The A80 is a trunk road in Scotland, linking Glasgow to Stirling. The road, which has been converted to motorway standard at its beginning and end sections, is one of Scotland's busiest, taking traffic in a north easterly direction from Glasgow, to the new town of Cumbernauld, and then onward to Stirling where it merges with the M9 which eventually becomes the A9 to the North.

The A80 has gained a reputation for being one of Scotland's worst traffic bottlenecks. The Stepps-Cumbernauld stretch, built in the 1960s is now seriously undercapacity in relation to the amount of traffic it carries. The lack of hard shoulders mean that a vehicle breakdown can cause massive jams which can stretch all the way back into the North East of Glasgow. Some of this was alleviated in 1992 by building the M80 Stepps bypass at the southern end of the route, but the problems now centre around the Crowwood roundabout near Stepps on the outer periphery of Glasgow.

The troublesome Auchenkilns roundabout in Cumbernauld was finally replaced by a grade separated junction between the A80 and A73 which opened in November 2005, but the widely regarded long term solution to the A80's problems is to replace it entirely with a motorway which will bypass Cumbernauld completely. There was a scheme devised to do just that in the 1970s, which would have linked the part M80 that stretches from Glasgow to Stepps to that which begins at Haggs (near Falkirk), where it connects to the A803, through what has become known as the "Kelvin Valley Route".

The Scottish Executive announced in 2003 that the A80 would be upgraded to Motorway standard, replacing the A80 from Stepps to Haggs with the M80. The Kelvin Valley route was not chosen as it would breach the Antonine Wall, instead an on-line upgrade through Cumbernauld selected. However, this decision means that the new section of M80 will only be 2 lane standard, arguably not increasing capacity of the road.

The Upgrade will be in 3 phases with the first being the upgrade of the Mollinsburn - Auchenkilns which will have three lanes each way plus hard shoulders. The second phase will see the upgrading of the auchenkilns - Haggs Section with two lanes each way plus hard shoulders. The third phase will see the construction of a new section to the north of Moodiesburn, this section will have two lanes each way and hard shoulders and will see the current A80 south of Moodiesburn being bypassed.

This upgrade is scheduled to complete in 2011 with works beginning in 2008.

External links

* Road to Nowhere
** http://www.road-to-nowhere.co.uk/route-guides/A80/
** [http://www.road-to-nowhere.co.uk/future/M80.htm A80 to M80 upgrade]