Progress is being seen for a key Scottish road contract.
The project to upgrade a further stretch of Scotland’s important A9 route is taking another step forward. The tender process is now opening for the work and will be managed by Transport Scotland, with the award of the contract expected in 2022.
Converting the 6km stretch of the A9 between Tomatin and Moy to a dual carriageway is expected to cost £115 million. This stretch of the A9 lies to the south of Inverness. In all, the project to upgrade the A9 between Perth and Inverness is costing £3 billion.
The improvement work to the A9 is necessary as the road, with a single lane in either direction along much of its length, has suffered a comparatively high number of crashes over the years. Traffic volumes can be high while the road can also be extremely treacherous in winter when it is often closed due to snow. The route carries considerable tourist traffic in summer months and a known factor in the fairly high number of head-on crashes is from drivers in left hand drive vehicles attempting to overtake slower moving heavy trucks.
Safety measures introduced previously include allowing increased speeds for HGVs to try and reduce the number of dangerous overtakes. They also include the installation of average speed cameras along the A9 to reduce the incidence of speeding.
