A9013

Route

Holburn Street

The A9013 comprised part of the former route of the A92 through Aberdeen city centre.

The road began on Holburn Street at the very busy Garthdee Roundabout on the A92 (formerly the A90 until the construction of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route), now home to a large superstore and various other retail outlets. The route headed north through several sets of traffic lights and roundabouts into the city centre, passing the B9077 Great Southern Road and the A93 Great Western Road, before arriving at a signal-controlled junction on Union Street, the "high street" of Aberdeen. The A9013 number then continued along the full length of Union Street, before turning to follow King Street as far as the crossroads with the A96 and A956. From there, King Street continues as the A956.

Although it is not obvious from the street, much of the route between Union Bridge and the Market Street/St Nicholas Street crossing is the 19th century equivalent of an elevated motorway, having been built across the old town on a granite viaduct. Some shop floors at street level are in fact at least two storeys above the ground.

History

The A92 originally entered Aberdeen along the Stonehaven Road, as it does once more after nearly 30 years as the A90. It then followed the route of the A9013 completely, along Holburn Street, Union Street and King Street, continuing north out of Aberdeen along the present route of the A956.

In 1941 the King George VI Bridge was opened, and the A92 was re-routed across it (along what is now the B9077 Great Southern Road), rejoining the traditional route at the Holburn Street roundabout, instead of heading over the Bridge of Dee. Maps from the period immediately after the war identify the southern section of Holburn Street and the Bridge of Dee as the A9103, although this is generally presumed to be an error, albeit one which persisted into the 1960s. For a brief period in the late 1960s, the A945 may have used the southern end of Holburn Street to meet the Garthdee Roundabout, although the mapping is a little confused and it may have continued on Riverside Drive to meet the A92.

For a brief period in the early 1990s, the A92 was re-routed again, away from the city centre and along Anderson Drive, before being renumbered A90 shortly afterwards. At this point the A9013 was extended along the former A92 route into the city centre to reach its full extent as described above. Prior to this, however, the southern section of Holburn Street was correctly identified on mapping as the A9013.

Up until 2020, there were still signs on the former route of the A9013 referring to the "A92 (A94)" route to Dundee and Perth; bizarrely these have now been patched over with the defunct A9013 number. With the opening of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route in 2018, the A92 number has returned to Aberdeen, but continues to follow the Anderson Drive route rather than the traditional route subsequently occupied by the A9013. The A9013 lost its number in 2020 following a significant reclassification of routes within Aberdeen.