page_title: A59 road
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: A59 road / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Skipton &amp; Knaresborough Road Now known as the A59.
context_page_description: The A59 is a major road in England which is around 109 miles long and runs from Wallasey, Merseyside to York, North Yorkshire. The alignment formed part of the Trunk Roads Act 1936, being then designated as the A59. It is a key route connecting Merseyside at the M53 motorway to Yorkshire, passing through three counties and connecting to various major motorways. The road is a combination of historical routes combined with contemporary roads and a mixture of dual and single carriageway. Sections of the A59 in Yorkshire closely follow the routes of Roman roads, some dating back to the Middle Ages as salt roads, whilst much of the A59 in Merseyside follows Victorian routes which are largely unchanged to the present day.
  Numerous bypasses have been constructed throughout the 20th century, one of the earliest being the Maghull bypass in the early 1930s, particularly where traffic through towns was congested. Portions of the route through Lancashire were proposed to be upgraded to motorway standard during the mid-20th century, latterly being downgraded to significant improvements then ultimately withdrawn from consideration.
context_section_description: The route from Liverpool to Leeds via Preston was one of many roads across the country to be designated a trunk road in the Trunk Roads Act 1936, being given the designation A59 and encompassing the alignment from Liverpool to Skipton. The route fell within the first schedule of the act, which also included around 4,460 miles (7,180 km) of road to be trunked and designated.
  This century saw the vast majority of the A59's bypasses constructed, some of which were built before trunking, including a bypass of Ormskirk town centre in Lancashire, which appeared on maps from 1929 onwards as "Byepass Road" and subsequently forming the A59. Numerous additional bypasses were built after the road was trunked, to realign the A59 away from routes where it may have previously travelled through busy towns and cities. One of the earliest examples is in Lancashire with the Longton Bypass, which was constructed during 1956–57 at an estimated cost of £491,000 (equivalent to £12,350,000 in 2019). Prior to the bypass, the A59 travelled through the villages of Walmer Bridge, Longton and Hutton before being realigned to their east.
  In Yorkshire at Beamsley Hill, there are two lanes east-bound (on an incline) and a single lane west-bound, some of which was improved at various points during the late 20th century, such as in Hazlewood, where the A59 was rerouted to become a largely straight road, bypassing the now older winding route which exists to its north-west. The A59 was also rerouted just to the east of the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway during the same period, requiring construction of a new Bolton Bridge over the River Wharfe, with the former alignment now forming a bridleway.
  Up until the early 1970s, the start of the A59 was in the centre of Liverpool; this now forms a small spur connecting to the present day A59, which runs through the Kingsway Tunnel from its start point in Wallasey. The Birkenhead alignment of the A59 utilises a disused railway cutting to link the road up to the M53 motorway. In Lancashire, the A59 was realigned during the same period in the early 1970s, to bypass the towns of Clitheroe and Whalley and was constructed as a single-carriageway despite parliamentary concerns that it would be less safe than a dual-carriageway. The bypass had been confirmed the year before at an estimated cost of £3.4 million (equivalent to £56,372,349 in 2019).
  The A59 stretch of the Skipton Bypass was opened in 1981 at an estimated cost of £16.4 million (equivalent to £63,322,699 in 2019), crossing the B6265 north of the town and providing relief to traffic congestion.
  The A59 was upgraded to primary status during the 1990s due to its increased perceived importance as an east–west route. This stretch of the route was claimed in 2004 to be one of the busiest roads in North Yorkshire.
  Whilst now skirting to the north of Goldsborough towards the A1(M), originally the route went through the village of Flaxby and onto Allerton, but the route now travels a restricted east–west route and meets the A1(M) at its junction 47. The road originally ended to the south of Green Hammerton, with the A66 routed down from Boroughbridge and going into York.
caption: The A59 (new alignment) near Bolton Bridge, approx 3 miles east of Skipton
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