A64

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A64

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From:

Leeds (SE306348)

To:

Scarborough (TA032879)

Via:

York, Malton

Length:

66.6 miles (107.2 km)

Meets:

A1(M), A58, A63, A165, A166, A169, A170, A1079, A1237

Primary Destinations

Leeds • Scarborough • York •

Highways Authorities

Highways Agency

Traditional Counties

Yorkshire

Route outline (key)

A64(M)	Leeds
A64	Leeds – Scarborough

For detailed information about this topic, see CBRD Motorway Database - A64

Route

The A64 is one of the few two-digit A-roads that I can think of that actually performs its duty as a major road for all of its length and is also about the right length for most traffic to use a significant amount of it!

The A64 starts (as far as I can tell) on the A58 in the centre of Leeds, and it begins as the A64(M) Inner Ring Road, creating a TOTSO for A58 traffic (marking the end of the A58(M) where the A58 turns off). The A64(M) is short lived, and soon becomes the plain old A64 where the sliproad merges from the Woodpecker Junction. Oddly, the A64 here at York Road has three lanes each way, while the A64(M) has only two.

The six-lane superhighway bombs out of Leeds (damn good road into and out of the city), grade-separated all the way, until it slams into the traffic lights at Harehills Road, and the B6159 begins its multiplex for a mile or so. From here to the Ring Road there are guided bus lanes down the middle of the dual-carriageway, and we drop to two lanes each way.

After about another mile there's a big traffic light controlled junction where the B6159 ends its multiplex and forks off to the right, and we carry on through traffic lights, traffic lights, traffic lights and traffic lights until we finally hit the A6120 Ring Road, and we multiplex with it for about half a mile uphill to the next roundabout along (the A6120 is the signed road here). This (November 2008) remains a surprising survival of NSL in an urban environment. The dual-carriageway stops rather disappointingly from here and we tootle on along a single-carriageway road for several miles until the new A1 roundabout (not good for the main road to the A1 from north Leeds).

After this roundabout, we return to two-lane dual carriageway. The Highways Agency is fighting to shut off lots of the little side roads along this, because the only dual carriageway to York still has a couple of right turns along the way. There are some grade-separated junctions, on the Tadcaster bypass, built in the late 1970s. The former A64 through Tadcaster is now called the A659.

Red Bus Cafe,A64

Once you pass the signs for "YORK" and the A1237, it's sub-motorway standard all the way. This is the best bit – fast and quieter with every junction, especially since the Copmanthorpe traffic lights were removed in 2002. There's a junction with the A1036 which was the former A64 through York. for now, we go along the York Bypass built in 1976 and has GSJs with the A19, A1079, and A166. Things go superbly until we slam, once again, into a roundabout, namely the Hopgrove Roundabout, at the end of the York bypass. This is where the A64 re-meets the A1036 adn A1237. From here, the dual carriageway dries up once again, and we move on in a stream of traffic along the dull sections (no villages even) to the edge of the Vale of York.

You know when you hit the edge of the Vale of York because you are unceremoniously tipped off the edge and into a series of steep climbs and drops, helped along by a few miles of dual carriageway through the worst bits. This ends again (though it seems pretty clear that it was meant to connect up as dual-carriageway from York to Malton one day). We tootle on a little longer in single-carriageway dullness (and it is dull – there's nothing on this bit at all) until the dual-carriageway Malton Bypass – a great bit of road, once again grade-separated and empty too – the traffic evaporates once you hit it. the Malton bypass was built in 1979, and the former A64 is now the B1248.

We cross the A169 (very lonely road) and then go back to single-carriageway again, once the bypass ends, on to a much more enjoyable section. It's usually quieter and with nicer scenery. We pass the Ham and Cheese Inn at Scagglethorpe (I'm not making this up, honest: Lonewolf provides the evidence here.) and then the Flower Cafe at Rillington, just after the traffic lights. From here if you look north you'll see a valley running parallel, and on the far side the A170. After a while, we pass through East and then West Heslerton, "Welcome, please drive carefully." where there is nothing at all and then another set of lights at Sherburn, after which there's a very very long factory building on the left belonging to Ward Building Components Ltd. (They make the girders and panels that make up modern industrial buildings).

After this it's a nice drive through Ganton (where the pub appears on the brown tourist signs for some reason) and then past another set of lights at he start of the Staxton bypass to end at a roundabout with the A1039. You can stay at a holiday camp here if you're so inclined. The A64 turns north rather suddenly here, and to another roundabout with the B1261 and the Seamer bypass begins, the former A64 being the B1261. The A64 goes round towards Scarborough and passes through the industrial area of Seamer and around a roundabout before meeting the B1261 at another roundabout. From here the road joins it old alignment and starts slowing into Scarborough, through a few sets of traffic lights, to end outside the big ugly theatre on the A165.