A89/route

Glasgow

The A89 is afforded a beginning in some illustrious surroundings, those of Glasgow Cross, the Mercat Building and the Gallowgate, a road name much more famous than plain old A89. Curiously, one can't use the Gallowgate to drive all the way to the Cross, because the last (first?) two hundred yards are eastbound only and westbound travellers need to use a dog-leg and the parallel A749 London Road. Once both directions of traffic do meet at Moir Street, the first mile of the journey takes in many famous sights such as the bazaar at “The Barras” and its namesake music venue, the well-loved Barrowland Ballroom. Dotted aside them and lining much of the Gallowgate is however an inner-city area awaiting (and certainly requiring) regeneration, which has not come so quickly to Glasgow's East End as it has its West.

The A89 follows Gallowgate as far as Parkhead, where its meets its first two roundabouts and neatly scythes a shopping park, The Forge, in two. This newer-build section ties Parkhead to Shettleston, one of the most deprived areas of the city. Shettleston Road is lined by low-rise industry, much of it abandoned, and open spaces left by slum clearance. Around the point where Shettleston Road becomes residential, there is an off-shoot to its north called Old Shettleston Road, meaning this is a bypass of sorts. It is certainly a more direct route than its elder namesake, although it pre-dates any numerical attribution. In an effort to reuse the cleared land, there is another outlet-style shopping park with plentiful parking in eastern Shettleston, presenting something of a “new town” feel.

Shettleston soon becomes Baillieston and at last some of Glasgow's fabled green spaces come into view. The buildings here are interwar four-in-a-block types and this is much more affluent suburbia. The unusual designation of Glasgow Road appears (unusual while still inside Glasgow council area, that is) and having covered a total of five miles of Glaswegian tarmac so far, there's a gentle curve for the A89 to the west/north to a major junction with the A8, something of a trend for a traveller taking this route the whole way. Baillieston Interchange's various sliproads tangle their way into and above most of the next mile of road. Whereas there is a dual-carriageway link to the A8 east and M73, what is oft forgotten is the direct slip roads from A89 to the M8 facing back to Glasgow – driving eastbound though, only a merge is encountered.

The Monklands

The road has exited Glasgow proper into North Lanarkshire and – as a dual carriageway for the first time – into its first commuter settlement, Bargeddie. The centre of the town is marked by a small roundabout shared with the A752 for Gartcosh (north) and yet another out of town shopping park (south), before the first significant countryside can be seen lining the road. Not for long though, as there is more development ongoing in this area evidenced by a new roundabout which is as-yet inactive, its only non-A89 arm blocked off with concrete barriers. The short green space though still persists, at least as far as the outskirts of Coatbridge, where the road reverts back to single carriageway.

Coatbridge is synonymous with industry, mainly iron smelting, but this road is lined with parkland which belies the town's history. At least as far as the town centre, that is, where a five-armed roundabout beneath Coatbridge Central station begins a bypass of the concrete fortress that marks the main shopping plaza. It has a very grand title, the South Circular Road no less, and in jest you could consider it built to a better standard than its more famous London namesake. All it has to negotiate however is some car parks where weary travellers can access yet more outsized shopping parks with endless grey fields of parking bays. Another roundabout at the far end allows Main Street, having found its own way through the pedestrianised centre, to take over the route once more.

Coatdyke

Coatbridge is just about large enough to have its own suburbs, and through Coatdyke the road takes on a ruler-straight alignment again, splitting the Centenary Park in two and allowing travellers to merge seamlessly into Airdrie. Collectively, Coatbridge and Airdrie, along with their dotted satellites, are collectively known as the Monklands; the monks in question being a 12th-century Catholic order. Enterprising etymology aside, there are really two routes through Airdrie which split at this point. The A89 will curve gently to the right towards the centre, whereas the A8010 takes a more northerly alignment. Much of what has been said of Coatbridge town centre can be recycled here; four roundabouts take a bypass of the centre which has been cut off to traffic. This one isn't so smooth though, and there's a very obvious 90-degree turn to get back on to the original line at Clark Street. A further roundabout in the eastern outskirts between A89 and A73 doesn't seem of much importance today, but these were once the only serious routes west to Glasgow and south to Carlisle. The A73 southwards is even called Carlisle Road.

Interurban section

Drumgelloch is one of the Monklands' outposts, in which the road carves out a central path alongside the railway. As the last houses disappear out of view, there is just about time to glance on a massive disused industrial site at Raywards; this rather sad scene marks the eastern extreme of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. There are small interspersed villages ahead, first of which is the curiously-named Plains, perhaps owing to the plateau that the A89 is traversing here. Between the 1960s and the late 2000s, the road did so alone but now the Airdrie to Bathgate rail link has been finished and they twin together here and weave through the farmland and its occasional interruptions, the next being Caldercruix. It is mostly bypassed; the road has never reached the centre here and always skirted to the south.

Blackridge

Here, at just past the A89's halfway point and without any warning, the road becomes beautifully rural as it draws alongside the substantial Hillend Reservoir at central Scotland's watershed. The road crosses into West Lothian where farmland and woodland draw alongside. The geography is not particularly challenging here, affording good sightlines and surprisingly straight roads. A smaller village afterwards, Blackridge, consists almost entirely of the main road and provides only a temporary interruption to the green view. Armadale, not so – it is a town in its own right which is growing steadily: evidence, therefore, that the rural part of the journey is at an end almost as quickly as it begun and the Edinburgh commuter belt has taken over. The two conurbations, at their extremities, have less than ten miles of countryside between them.

Armadale and Bathgate

After Armadale, there is a roundabout with the purposeful A801 dual carriageway (a purpose that doesn't go far given that road's dotted history). It lies roughly equidistant from Armadale and Bathgate, the A89's next stop. Bathgate is more reminiscent of Baillieston than of the Monklands towns, with its low rise semi-detached housing. The industrial lands are here, they're just not so central that they can be seen from the A89. The town centre can though, and its concrete façades would be instantly recognisable to any resident of Coatbridge or Airdrie, although the square where it fronts on to the main road has been tidied up well and features a very handsome detached property which has found new use as a bank. Outside the hugely redeveloped railway station, the road finally picks up the Edinburgh Road moniker.

As if to mirror the Glasgow commuter towns now, after Bathgate there is a section of road interrupted frequently by roundabouts, widespread with oversize hypermarkets and abandoned industry. The old Leyland car works at Boghall is just about visible because the eastern side of the road remains undeveloped here (thankfully though, the works are being redeveloped). A six-armed roundabout marks Boghall's eastern limit, and this one has a junction with the M8 (3A) that has swung back into view suddenly for the first time since Glasgow. Departing here also, the road to Livingston (A779), and another back upon itself (A7066, more to do with that explained in the History section).

Broxburn and Newbridge

Near Dechmont

A different lot altogether now for this section of the road, essentially an access road for the Deans industrial estate. Unlike before, this is newer, low rise, industry and some commercial lots. It hides the view of the motorway and of Livingston to the south; the northern view is considerably more rural as far as Dechmont, the A899, and the beginning of a proper bypass of the next and last major settlement en route, Broxburn. The bypassing is quite thorough, save for a new housing development which inexplicably needed its access to the A89 instead of the main street, creating a roundabout interruption. Broxburn is constantly expanding, with the once rural bypass now serving as a limit for the southern extremity of development; thankfully, the farmland to the south of the road has managed to remain untouched. Broxburn is much longer east-west than it is north-south and is concentrated around its main road; the bypass is almost four miles long and very, very straight.

The curiously-named Kilpunt Roundabout is the merge point of A89 and A899, and there is only one road left to take in a little more unexpected countryside twinned with a modicum of modernising industrial sites. It ducks under the mammoth Ratho Viaduct and into Edinburgh City Council area proper; “city” that is despite the continuation of greenery for at least another mile. That last mile goes from Broxburn to Newbridge, which has had its main street ox-bowed off by a newer A89 route. Newbridge is as much car showroom metropolis as it is residential settlement, but at least there is a mound of neatly sculpted parkland which can just about be seen before the road rears up to its terminus at Newbridge Roundabout, the local Bermuda Triangle junction where five classified roads meet (M8, M9, A8, A89 and B7030) and none continue through the junction (although the A8 does reappear some distance away near Airdrie). Straight across the roundabout, Edinburgh Airport and the city itself are just about in view.