A195
A195 | ||||
Location Map ( geo) | ||||
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From: | Lambton (NZ288546) | |||
To: | Wardley (NZ305614) | |||
Distance: | 6.2 miles (10 km) | |||
Meets: | A195(M), A182, A1231, A1290, A194(M), A184 | |||
Former Number(s): | A1231, A182, A184 | |||
Highway Authorities | ||||
Traditional Counties | ||||
Route outline (key) | ||||
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For the original A195, a road that ran from Morpeth to Shankhouse near Newcastle upon Tyne, see A195 (Morpeth - Shankhouse).
Route
The A195 is an urban distributor in north County Durham.
The road starts at the eastern end of its eponymous motorway spur, the A195(M) from A1(M) J64. It runs east as grade-separated dual carriageway through Washington new town. It passes the suburb of Lambton on the Western Highway before reaching a roundabout on the A182 Washington Highway. This junction is also grade-separated - but not for us.
The A195 continues east as Northumberland Way, a lower-quality road, now S2 with at-grade roundabouts. However, it remains NSL and there are no buildings alongside the road, so it is still a good new-town distributor. As the road continues on it bends to the left and, now heading northwards, crosses the A1231 at a roundabout GSJ.
Northumberland Way continues on in much the same format through the northern suburbs. Presently the road reaches open country (although little has changed from the driver's viewpoint) before reaching Follingsby Interchange on the A194(M) and the end of Northumberland Way.
On the far side of the motorway, the initial quality of the A195 is the same as before - but soon a 40 limit is reached and a set of traffic lights on the B1288. On the far side of the lights the road is urban, lined with houses and looking like any other urban road. A short distance further on the A184 is reached. This is met at a bizarre GSJ with elongated sliproads, as it had to be fitted in to the available space and still allow residential access.
The A195 TOTSOs left on reaching this junction: continuing ahead leads to the westbound on/offslip. The A184 is then crossed on a bridge. The next road on the left is the eastbound offslip but before this is reached the mainline of the A195 TOTSOs right (onto the original line of the A184). It runs along Sunderland Road along the edge of Wardley, a road that is liberally scattered with traffic calming. This road has the air of an urban estate road rather than a sliproad as that is essentially what it is. It is not for about half a mile that the road finally reaches the eastbound A184 - and it does not merge in with the road but forms the offslip for the next GSJ, with the A194. Indeed, the section along Sunderland Road is so long that there is another eastbound offslip here as well as the one mentioned earlier.
History
The majority of the A195 did not exist until the road network of Washington new town was created in the 1970s. However, the section from the A184 south to just past the A194(M) was the original northern end of the A182 (the place that left the current road no longer exists).
The route of the A195 (which was built from the west end eastwards) was originally allocated the A1231 number but was later changed when the A1231 was rerouted on an all dual-carriageway route emerging at J65 of the A1(M).