B902

This article is about the current B902 between Falkirk and Stenhousemuir.
For the original B902 from Queensferry to Bo'ness, now largely A904, see B902 (Borrowstounness - Queensferry).

Route

Grahams Road, Falkirk

The B902 is a short B-road running through the northern suburbs of Falkirk. It starts at a roundabout on the A803 relief road in Falkirk town centre and heads north on Grahams Road, immediately crossing the railway line by Grahamston station. A mini roundabout is quickly followed by a full roundabout giving access to the large retail park to the east, but the B902 continues north along Grahams Road, lined by shops and businesses. This ribbon of commercial premises continues north with stop start traffic dodging bus stops, parked cars, delivery wagons and junctions until eventually the Forth & Clyde Canal is crossed. On the far side an unclassified road heads off right from traffic lights, leading through an industrial estate to reach the A9.

The B902, meanwhile, continues north on Main Street to cross over the A9 without a junction and so into Bainsford where, after a short parade of shops, housing finally takes over on both sides as the route becomes Carron Road. Soon, however, large retail units sit behind trees to the left, although the old Co-op supermarket has been demolished, and the site lies empty waiting for development. At a roundabout, the B902 meets the B906, which takes traffic back to the A9 on Ronaldes Road. Shortly afterwards the route forks right onto a relief road which crosses the River Carron at Carron Bridge on New Carron Road, rejoining the old route at Carron Roundabout. New Carron Road continues north, passing to the east of Stenhousemuir and is finally released from the confines of suburbia. It enjoys a pleasant run through trees with just two side turnings leading into the housing estates that back onto the route.

Roughlands Roundabout comes next, the current starting point of the B905. The B902 continues north along New Carron Road, the relief again running through trees between the housing, this time without any junctions, to end at the Antonshill Roundabout on the A88.

An amended OpenStreetMap trace for this route awaits uploading to the SABRE Wiki.

History

The original route of the B902 in Falkirk

Much of the current route of the B902 was originally numbered as the B905 in 1922. This extended north from the centre of Falkirk as far as the River Carron, the B902 route to the north being a modern construction.

The original incarnation of the B902 at Bo'ness only lasted a few years before being upgraded, and while it is not known exactly when this happened it was before 1932. The OS Ten Mile Map from that year also appears to show the original route of this version of the B902. This was an L-shaped route which started on the B9036 in Carron and used Alloa Road and King Street to reach Stenhousemuir. Alloa Road is now cut in two by the B902, but otherwise the route survives.

In more recent years the B902 lost this route completely, although the chronology is uncertain. New Carron Road, including the new Carron Bridge, was built from Carron north to the A88 and numbered B902, thus bypassing Alloa Road. It is most likely that at the same time the B905 was re-routed onto King Street, and so the road south from Carron into Falkirk, which was the B905, became an extension of the B902, giving the road its current route.