Motorway Database

Travelling east from the road's start at Holyhead, the Anglesey section was opened relatively recently as an EU investment project. The road is about twenty miles of dual carriageway through pleasant, if slightly barren, terrain.

Until the 1980s the only road onto Anglesey was Telford's suspension bridge. The reconstruction of the Britannia railway bridge after fire damage provided an opportunity to provide a road crossing more suitable for large vehicles, and today the bridge carries trains on the lower deck and the A55 on the top.

Driving across the bridge in the rain, there is unfortunately only room for a single-carriageway road and this is now probably the worst bottleneck on the route, particularly when the road is busy with traffic from the ferry.

Further east, the tunnels either side of Penmaenmawr provide drama. Westbound traffic uses a modern road tunnel directly through the headland, but eastbound traffic uses the road around the cliff built in the 1930s, seen here at Pen-y-clip.

Between the two headlands the road opens out again, but the scenery remains very dramatic. At the bottom of this hill is Penmaenmawr, with the road negotiating the hills directly ahead before reaching Colwyn.

The second headland is handled the same way - a new tunnel westbound and the old 1930s arterial road eastbound. Here the old road is considerably more twisting, with very poor sightlines, and the speed limit is just 30mph.

The 'secret motorway' at Colwyn Bay is very much an urban motorway, pushed through the urban area alongside the railway line.

The famous marble church is right alongside the A55 at Bodelwyddan and, at night, it's quite eerie.
Photo by Paul Martin