A738 Primary Route at Kilwinning

[roadphotos]

I think most maps show the Primary Route at Kilwinning going down the A737 to the A78 but I think this is incorrect, I believe that the Primary Route to the A78 is the A738. When going south on the A737 from Dalry and into Kilwinning the signs direct traffic for the A78 and Ayr to turn right onto the A738 and head down to the A78, this I would assume is done to keep through traffic away from the centre of town. The other thing is that the green Primary Route signs continue down the A738 to the A78 while the A737 which goes through the centre of town before heading down to the A78 has all white Non Primary Route signage. Of course the quicker route to the A78 is the B779. I believe that the Wiki is also incorrect as it also has the A737 as the Primary Route to the A78 and the A738 as Non Primary, does anyone know for sure ?

[rileyrob]

You are quite correct. The trunk route was swapped a number of years ago, although signage and mapping hasn't fully caught up. This is confirmed on the https://www.traffic.gov.scot/ where various layers identify the trunk route network. Traffic counts from 2018 on Sabre Maps and personal experience suggest that the A737 is still the busier of the two routes, although this is probably largely due to local traffic between Kilwinning and Irvine.
In theory there is no difference between the trunk and primary network in Scotland, although there are numerous former primary routes now managed by local authorities that still have green signage in places, sometimes relatively new signs which have been replaced like for like. Signage in Kilwinning does seem to have been updated, but there are a handful of green signs still around the A78 junction.

[roadphotos]

Thanks for the information, I was wondering whether the Primary Route had been switched from the A737 to the A738 at some point to direct through traffic away from the town centre and this appears to be what has happened the only thing is this change doesn't appear on mapping.

[Summers-lad]

The inclusion of A738 is confirmed by Transport Scotland's official list of trunk roads https://www.transport.gov.scot/publicat ... unk-roads/. Interestingly, the map on their own website, although lacking in detail, still shows A737 through Kilwinning as the trunk route, as does the Traffic Scotland map.