B3183
From Roader's Digest: The SABRE Wiki
| B3183 | ||||
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| From: | Cowley Bridge Road (SX910941) | |||
| To: | Honiton Road (SX956926) | |||
| Via: | Heavitree, Exeter | |||
| Length: | 3.3 miles (5.3 km) | |||
| Meets: | A377, B3212, A3015, B3181 | |||
| Former Number(s): | A377, A30, A35 | |||
| Primary Destinations | ||||
| Exeter • | ||||
| Highways Authorities | ||||
| Traditional Counties | ||||
| Route outline (key) | ||||
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For all previous routes of the B3183 in Exeter, see B3183 (historical).
The B3183 is a cross-Exeter route on the alignment of former A roads. It starts at a sharp fork, climbing up from the A377 which winds its way along the River Exe next to the railway sidings. The University is further up the hill to the left, influencing this part of Exeter as a Student quarter. Our route then swings round to the left, avoiding Queen Street which ploughs straight into the city centre, but despite this we still have to cross the main shopping street a little further to the north. There have been vague plans to re-route this section and finish the pedestrianisation of Exeter's City Centre for many years, but nothing has been done yet.
What has been done is to make the B3183 one-way, so to continue our west-east route we have to turn off, and head north east up Sidwell Street past the shops, with buses as a contraflow. The B3183 Paris Street is only open to westbound traffic. The one-way system re-converges at the roundabout where the B3212 Western Way crosses, and we head east once more along Heavitree Road, through that suburb and onto the old Honiton Road. The B3183 then forks, with each arm soon terminating on the A3015 Exeter Bypass road.
History
The first section of this route was originally the A377 heading into Exeter. However, that route continued along Queen Street to the main city-centre cross roads. New North Road was originally unclassified, but Paris Street seems to have been the original route of the A30, and it is the A30s original route which the B3183 now follows all the way out of Exeter to the bypass, albeit with the right-hand terminal spur of Sidmouth Road being the old start point for the A35.
Once the Exeter Bypass was opened, there were many changes to the classified routes in and around Exeter, but it was not until the opening of the M5 that the A30 was finally re-routed out of the city centre. It appears, however, that the A377 had already been re-routed onto it's current route before that.
