A26 Ballymena Road dualling, Antrim Phase 1

 

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.