From Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki
Route
This road has gained a few miles at the expense of its neighbours, due to construction of first the M90, then the A92 improvements. The most scenic way to drive it is north to south. A909 emerges seamlessly from B914 at Junction 4 of the M9. There is a magnificent dead straight descent through the town, with several speed bumps. This section was all B914 prior to the motorway, and was elevated to A status as a feeder from much of southern Fife into the northbound M90. In the town centre B917 Hill of Beath–Kinross crosses (why was A90 not routed this way?). East of Kelty is an acute TOTSO with B996 (it looks worse on the map than on the ground), the straight route being the former A90. A very twisty section of former A90 continues to the outskirts of Cowdenbeath where B981 (once A910) joins at a roundabout.
Descending into Cowdenbeath, A909 passes under the Fife Circle railway line en route through the centre of this depressing town. A roundabout at the southern end marks the 1922 start of the road, and a very busy stretch leads to the diamond where A92 is crossed by an overbridge. A realigned section with eased gradients follows, passing the sci-fi retorts of the Fife Polyethylene Plant, to reach a roundabout with B925 Halbeath–Kirkcaldy. Originally this marked the start of a gap in A909, where it multiplexed with A907. A twisting switchback section follows; in one place the modern road seems on a map to cross over a former alignment by a bridge, but this isn't evident when driving.
Midway is a strange double
TOTSO with the
B9157, explained by the fact that the crossing road (previously the
A907 to the east and an earlier incarnation of the
B924 to the west) was once the main route from Kirkcaldy to the Firth of Forth road crossing before the
A92 was rebuilt on its present alignment. Back on its original line, A909 sweeps down into Burntisland, with magnificent views across the Firth of Forth, to end at a roundabout with
A921 (once
A92). Old maps show various A-roads in Burntisland without giving them numbers, but it is a fair bet that A909 originally continued along the decrepit High Street to the harbour after a short
multiplex with what is now
A921.
Original Author(s): Keith Potter
