A1 Upgrade section opens in the UK

A key section of the UK’s important A1 route is now open to traffic. The 5.6km stretch of the A1 in Cambridgeshire has been widened from two to three lanes in each direction. This work forms part of 8100 Highways England’s £1.5 billion project to upgrade the A14.

The busy A1 carries around 31,000 vehicles/day along this stretch. Highways England is upgrading 34km of the A14, the east of England’s major trunk road, between Cambridge and Huntingdon. The improvements include creating seamless links between the A14 and the A1, with a redesigned junction and widening of the A1 either side of it.

The improvements the A14 scheme is delivering will boost the local and national economy, upgrade a key link between the east coast and the midlands and save up to 20 minutes for the 85,000 drivers/day who use it. A

The project will deliver a continuous motorway from London to Peterborough for the first time.

The A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon project is now more than half way through construction. Nine of the project’s 34 bridges and structures have already opened to traffic and the longest one, the half-mile long River Great Ouse Viaduct, was completed in February. The team has worked hard to protect and enhance the natural environment, and made incredible archaeological discoveries including a 100,00-year-old woolly mammoth tusk and woolly rhino skull, and more recently the earliest evidence of beer brewing in Britain, dating back to 400BC.

The A14 project is due to be completed and fully opened by December 2020.