A34 road

Route map:
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other roads with the same name, see A34.

A34 shield
A34
E05
Length156.21 mi (251.40 km)
HistoryBetween
A3400
Major junctions
South end M3 at Winchester (51°04′08″N 1°17′28″W / 51.069°N 1.291°W / 51.069; -1.291)
Major intersections

A303

M4

A44

(
A40
)
M40

A41

M42

A41

M6

A5
M6 Toll

A51

A500

A53

A54

M56

M60
A57(M)

A6 at Salford(53°28′59″N 2°15′29″W / 53.483°N 2.258°W / 53.483; -2.258
)
Location
Country
East Didsbury
Burnage
Manchester
Road network
←
A35

The A34 is a major road in

Newbury Bypass around Newbury were the scene of significant direct action environmental protests in the 1990s.[4]
It is 151 miles (243 km) long.

Route

The road is in two sections. The northern section runs south through Manchester and Cheadle, and bypasses Handforth, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, before passing through Congleton, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and the southern suburbs of Stoke-on-Trent. It then continues south via Stone, Stafford, Cannock and Walsall, passes through the middle of Birmingham (where it briefly merges with the A41), before meeting the M42 motorway at junction 4 south of Solihull.

A34 Melrose Way–Alderley Edge bypass

The northern section of the road in effect combines with the motorway network and then resumes with the southern section.

The southern section begins 45 miles (72 km)

E05
European route. It is a dual carriageway throughout.

Together with parts of the M3 and the M40, the A34 forms an important route carrying freight from

Midlands. Because of the volume of traffic, bypasses were built along this route – at Newbury on the A34, and at Twyford Down
near Winchester on the M3 – but these were controversial for environmental reasons. Notably instead of cutting a short road tunnel through Twyford Down, the escarpment was carved out for the road traffic of the motorway, though the route of the old A33 closed as a result.

In 2004, the junction with the M4 motorway was re-engineered from a roundabout to free-flowing grade separated junction.[5]

The A34 looking North towards Didcot, in Oxfordshire, with the now demolished Didcot power station cooling towers visible

Future

The idea that the cancelled

A14
near Cambridge) would have been designated as A34, did not have any official status.

History and renumbering

For further information, see Great Britain road numbering scheme.
Kingsway in Manchester where the A34 nears the end of its route

The original (1922) route of the A34 was Winchester to Oxford, much shorter than it is today.[6] It was extended to Manchester on 1 April 1935,[7] replacing part of the A42 (Oxford to Birmingham through Shipston-on-Stour, Stratford-upon-Avon and Henley-in-Arden), A455 (Birmingham to Stafford), part of the A449 (Stafford to Newcastle-under-Lyme) and A526 (Newcastle to Manchester).

By 1953 the route was as follows:[8]

When the Oxford Ring Road was completed to the west of Oxford in 1962, the old route through the city was renumbered the A4144. On completion of the Abingdon Bypass in the 1970s, the old route from the Oxford Ring Road through Abingdon and Steventon to Chilton was partly declassified (for 5 miles (8.0 km)) and the rest renumbered A4183, B4017, A4130 and A4185.

In 1987, the A34 between Walsall and Bloxwich swapped routes with the parallel B4210.

In 1991, shortly after the completion of the M40 motorway, the road between Oxford and Solihull was renumbered. Between

Chipping Norton and Solihull the road lost its primary route status and was renumbered A3400, and south of Chipping Norton the route became part of an extended A44. The A34 was diverted north from the Oxford Ring Road to the M40 along parts of the former routes of the A43 (which had originally followed the route of the present B430) and A421. Much of the long-distance traffic formerly carried by the present A3400 now uses the M40 to Birmingham, and the M42 and M6
to by-pass the city.

When the Newbury Bypass was opened in 1998, the old route through Newbury became part of the A339 and the B4640.

The long planned and often postponed Alderley Edge bypass was completed in November 2010, ahead of schedule and within the £52 million budget.[9] The official opening ceremony was conducted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP,[10] on 19 November 2010.

References

  1. ^ "1:500,000 road map". Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
  2. ^ "The Winchester-Preston Trunk Road (A34) (Newbury Bypass Detrunking) (No.2) Order 1993". Archived from the original on 26 April 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2011.
  3. ^ "Trunk Roads Acts 1936 and 1946" (PDF). Retrieved 26 December 2011.
  4. ^ "1996: Green groups join bypass battle". BBC News. 18 January 1996. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
  5. ^ "A34 Chieveley/M4 Junction 13 improvement". Highways Agency. Archived from the original on 20 December 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2011.
  6. ^ List Of Class I and Class II Roads and Numbers (transcription) : HMSO
  7. ^ The National Archives File MT39/246 : "CLASSIFICATION : Renumbering of classified routes"
  8. AA
    Road Book of England and Wales, 4th edition (1953)
  9. ^ "Cheshire East Council News Release". Archived from the original on 22 October 2010. Retrieved 23 November 2010.
  10. ^ "Chancellor opens Alderley Edge bypass after 90 year wait". Manchester Evening News. M.E.N. Media. 19 November 2010.

External links

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