A428 road

A428 road
The bridge over the River Great Ouse
Route information
Length:	82.9 mi (133.4 km)
Major junctions
Northwest end:	Coventry
	A4600 road A444 road A4082 road A46 road A4071 road A426 road A5 road M1 motorway A4500 road A5080 road A508 road A5120 road A4501 road A45 road A509 road A422 road A5141 road A6 road A5140 road A421 road A1 road A1198 road A1303 road A14 road
Southeast end:	Cambridge
Location
Primary destinations:	Rugby Northampton Bedford Cambridge Coventry
Road network
Roads in the United Kingdom Motorways A and B road zones

The A428 road is a major road in central and eastern England. It connects the cities of Coventry and Cambridge by way of the county towns of Northampton and Bedford.

Route

Coventry - Northampton

The road starts on the A4600 Sky Blue Way in Coventry, heading Eastbound out of the city meeting the A444 and A4082 roads before crossing the A46 Eastern Bypass and into Warwickshire. The road then passes through the village of Binley Woods before becoming more rural in nature, meeting the Fosse Way and crossing the River Avon at Bretford. 3.8 miles (6.1 km) further along, the road enters Rugby where it meets the A4071 and A426 and passes Rugby School. It then continues out of the town to the east through the suburb of Hillmorton and crosses the A5 near Daventry International Railfreight Terminal (DIRFT). It meets the M1 at its original terminus, junction 18, and bypasses the towns of Crick and West Haddon. The road passes the Althorp family estate, then enters the town of Northampton.

Northampton - Cambridge

East of Northampton the road passes Little Houghton, Brafield-on-the-Green and Yardley Hastings. After here it enters Bedfordshire and the Borough of Bedford then meets the A509 at a roundabout. Continuing towards Bedford the road passes Lavendon, Cold Brayfield, Turvey and Bromham. It meets the A422 (for Milton Keynes north) at a roundabout entering Bedford.

The A428 route here is a concurrency with the A421, bypassing Bedford, Great Barford and Roxton (bypass opened on 24 August 2006), then at the Black Cat Roundabout joins the dual-carriageway A1 bypassing Wyboston. This £120,000 section of dual carriageway opened in 1959. The route leaves the A1 just south of St Neots. The first mile (1.6 km) of the 3-mile (4.8 km) St Neots bypass is also the boundary between Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Where it is crossed by the East Coast Main Line, it enters Cambridgeshire and the district of Huntingdonshire. The A428 from here to Cambridge follows the former A45, which became the A428 when the A14 opened. The road enters the district of South Cambridgeshire. It meets the A1198 (former A14) at Caxton Gibbet roundabout near Papworth Everard. From here the road is dual carriageway, bypassing the existing single carriageway section near Hardwick. The road terminates, merging into the A14 at Girton interchange, where traffic joins first from the M11 junction 14 and then from the trunk A14 road junction 31.

History

Bypasses and realignments

• Crick (Bypassed, now unclassified)
• West Haddon (Bypassed, now unclassified)
• Little Houghton (Bypassed, now unclassified) (the 2-mile (3.2 km) £1.4 million bypass opened in December 1979)
• Bromham (the 2-mile (3.2 km) £4.8 million bypass opened in September 1986)
• Bedford (now classified as A4280) - The first section of the Bedford Western Bypass opened December 2009. The route, 3.2 miles (5.1 km) in length, commences at the Bromham Bypass on the east side of the river for approximately 1 mile (1.6 km). It then passes southwards crossing the River Great Ouse flood plain and bypasses Kempston to meet the A421 (A1-M1 link)
• St Neots bypass (opened in December 1985, originally designated as the A45. The former route through the town is now the B1428).
• Eltisley bypass (opened in 1972, originally designated as the A45).

Recent Improvements

• Cambourne: Bypassed by a 1.2 miles (1.9 km) stretch of dual carriageway opened in May 2003.
• Caxton Gibbet: A two-lane £55 million dual carriageway section opened on 24 May 2007 after widening works started by the Highways Agency in August 2005, linking this point to a grade-separated junction at Hardwick (about 5 miles (8 km) further east).