A739

The A739 is a busy road linking the western districts of Glasgow. As its route includes the Clyde Tunnel, it was the main way from the South West of Scotland to North Scotland before the completion of the Erskine Bridge in the mid 1970s.

Route

Southern section: Craigton to the A814

The A739 starts at an at-grade traffic light junction with the A761. There is a short section of S2 before it becomes D2. This passes the suburb of Cardonald. We soon arrive at our first major road, the M8. We're near to a station and we go around a corner to get to the roundabout. This is where the primary bit ends and the junction here is a diamond-dumbbell hybrid. After the mess that is J25 of the M8, we go over the A8 roundabout witch is only is a limited junction with Southbound traffic have the access. We get the exit traffic and we're next to Shieldhall Hospital.

Clyde Tunnel South

The turn off comes and goes and we turn right then left to enter the Clyde Tunnel. It is like the Dartford Tunnel.

After about a mile, we blast out of the Tunnel and we pass a turn off (the original entrance and exit of the Clyde Tunnel) of a local road (this road used to be part of the main A82 Glasgow - Inverness road. The number A82 was re-allocated to the newly constructed Great Western Road/Boulevard in the 1920's with this road taking on the number A814)before the Victoria Park interchange with the A814. The junction here is another hybrid junction. It like a diamond-whirlpool hybrid. This is where my knowledge ends. This bit last time I was there has no Gatsos and is fairly busy.

Original Author(s): A Beaton

Northern Section: the A814 to Canniesburn

After emerging from the Clyde Tunnel and the tangle of slip roads at its junction with the A814 the road heads north as Balshagray Avenue, passing the eastern end of Victoria Park, very busy traffic-wise as it carries traffic to and from the Clydeside Expressway (A814) and the Clyde Tunnel.

It makes its first traffic light controlled junction with Victoria Park Drive and Victoria Park Gardens on the edge of the Broomhill district, followed fairly quickly by another with Crow Road. It heads north as Crow Road into the Jordanhill District, crossing under two railway bridges to another traffic light controlled junction, this time with Southbrae Drive. Continuing north into the Anniesland district, there is a traffic light camera on the southbound section at a pedestrian crossing, and it becomes a dual carriageway in preparation for the tangle of traffic lights that is Anniesland Cross, its junction with Great Western Road (A82) and Anniesland Road (formerly the A806, and now unclassified).

It continues north as Bearsden Road past a large Safeway superstore, through the Temple district, crosses the Forth and Clyde Canal and two railway lines before leaving the City of Glasgow and crossing into East Dunbartonshire (Bearsden and Milngavie prior to local government reorganisation in 1996) at the edge of the Westerton district (at one time this was known as Westerton Garden suburb). It becomes Switchback Road, well named as the road rises and falls as it enters the Canniesburn district on its approach to its northern end at Canniesburn Toll, its junction with the A81 and A809.

History

The A739 number seems to have been reallocated specifically for the new Clyde Tunnel and it's approaches. The only sections to be classified beforehand were north of the Clyde, namely the A806 north of Anniesland Cross, and the B813 along Crow Road to the south. The reason why the A806 number wasn't simply re-routed through the tunnel is probably that it would have taken the number out of zone, and back in the 1960s people still cared about such things!