OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: January 14, 2011
Webpage updated: December 18, 2021

        

ROADS AND STREETS IN OLD PLYMOUTH

FIRST DUAL CARRIAGEWAY

In 1919 the Government the first stretch of dual carriageway road was built between Birmingham and Liverpool.  It was to be nearly two decades later before this idea reached Plymouth.

It was announced in January 1937 that Plymouth Corporation were to build its first dual carriageway for 600 yards along the Crownhill Road from the Blue Monkey Public House at Saint Budeaux to the borough boundary at Little Dock Lane.

The sixty foot wide thoroughfare would consist of two carriageways of 20 feet each, with a central reservation of 4 feet and two footpaths of 8 feet each in width.  Normally provision would also be made for cycle tracks but the width of the Crownhill Road was insufficient to allow for that to be done.

It was also stated that the Ministry of Transport were to make the Plymouth to Exeter main road a dual carriageway but the advent of the Second World War forced them to postpone that proposal.