Scottish road upgrade being planned

Plans have been unveiled for a proposed road upgrade project in Scotland. These plans show the preferred route for the upgrade to the A96 between Nairn and Fochabers, towns which lie to the east of Inverness on Scotland’s North East coast. The project is being planned by Transport Scotland and will see the 45km road section being upgraded to dual carriageway status. The work will include building new crossings over the Aberdeen to Inverness rail links, as well as over the Spey, Findhorn and Lossie rivers.
December 6, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

Plans have been unveiled for a proposed road upgrade project in Scotland. These plans show the preferred route for the upgrade to the A96 between Nairn and Fochabers, towns which lie to the east of Inverness on Scotland’s North East coast. The project is being planned by Transport Scotland and will see the 45km road section being upgraded to dual carriageway status.

The work will include building new crossings over the Aberdeen to Inverness rail links, as well as over the Spey, Findhorn and Lossie rivers. Building a bridge over the Spey River will be subject to particularly strict environmental requirements as this river is central to some of Scotland’s most historic whisky distilleries.

Upgrading the A96 is long overdue as the present road does not cope well with traffic demand. The route is also subject to closures in winter, with the upgrade likely to make it easier to clear when conditions are severe. At present just 22km of the A96 route between Inverness and Aberdeen is of dual carriageway status. The plans call for the remaining 138km of the 160km A96 route between Inverness and Aberdeen to be upgraded to dual carriageway status.

Road Structures

Related Content

  • Italian highway bridge and tunnel link
    June 20, 2022
    A project in Central Italy is seeing the construction of new tunnel stretches, a bridge and a viaduct. The work is being carried out on State Road 318 by BESIX in partnership with DONATI, close to Perugia in Umbria.
    Read More
  • Bertha ends her Alaskan Way voyage in Seattle
    December 21, 2017
    Seattle's State Route 99 viaduct is coming down. David Arminas was on site. Bertha, the world’s largest diameter earth pressure balance tunnel boring machine, with a cutterhead diameter of 17.5m, is no more. Her 2.7km journey underneath the waterfront area of Seattle finished on April 4 and the power went off for the last time on an extraordinary TBM that had finally completed an extraordinary job. “A small sidewalk job would have had more impact on city traffic than we have had,” says Brian Russell a v
    Read More
  • PPP for Ecuador highway project
    May 11, 2018
    A 162km stretch of Ecuador’s highway route 40 is to be upgraded, improving the road’s safety and capacity. The section of highway being improved includes the stretch that links the town of Santa Elena, which lies on the Pacific Coast, with the city of Guayaquil, on the Guayas River. The contract now includes work to 30km more of the highway than was originally planned. The contractor Verdu is to carry out the PPP deal, which is expected to be worth US$231 million over the 20-year concession period.
    Read More
  • New bridge for Brazil proposed
    July 24, 2019
    A new bridge project costing nearly US$756 million has been proposed for Brazil.
    Read More

Highlighted Content