A741
| A741 | ||||||||||
| Location Map ( geo) | ||||||||||
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| From: | Paisley (NS486644) | |||||||||
| To: | Yoker (NS513686) | |||||||||
| Distance: | 5.4 miles (8.7 km) | |||||||||
| Meets: | A726, M8, A8, A877, River Clyde, A814 | |||||||||
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| Route outline (key) | ||||||||||
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The A741 connects Paisley with Renfrew.
Route
The route starts on the A726 (Ring Road) in Paisley town centre and heads north on Renfrew Road. This is a mixture of dual carriageway and S4, which passes a retail park, college campus, housing and industrial units. After one signalised junction it reaches a roundabout for a former factory site on the left, and then another roundabout for a larger retail park. This roundabout is also part of J27 of the M8, with the westbound onslip departing here. The offslip connects only to the southbound carriageway, so northbound traffic has to do a U-turn at this roundabout. Across the motorway another roundabout provides a spur which connects to the eastbound carriageway. The route continues north, now following Paisley Road, which is largely residential with some properties set back behind service roads. The two busiest junctions, including that for the B791 are signalised, while most of the others have central reservation gaps.
The route remains dualled until a signalised staggered crossroads junction with an unclassified road in Renfrew. Beyond this it is a wide single carriageway, with bus stops and parking bays lining the roadsides. Another signalised crossroads sits at the corner of Robertson Park, and then the route heads into Renfrew town centre, where it crosses the A8. This junction is a slightly awkward staggered crossroads, which can be difficult to navigate and often seems to have slow signal timings. The A741 continues ahead on the wide Hairst Street, which has extremely wide pavements and parking bays as far as the High Street, which terminates opposite the town hall and is the short A877. Canal Street and Ferry Road remain wide as they wind northwards through increasingly modern housing developments, suggesting that the road is heading somewhere significant. However the unwary motorist soon finds it terminates at the pedestrian-only Renfrew Ferry which crosses the Clyde to Yoker.
There is also a short stub, Yoker Ferry Road, at the north end of the Renfrew Ferry which runs to the A814 Dumbarton road. When the road was given its number, the Renfrew Ferry also carried motor vehicles, hence why the number appears on both sides of the Clyde. The fact that the ferry is now foot-only has not affected the road's classification.
History
The Renfrew-Yoker Ferry is one of Scotland's oldest ferries, operating at the current site for at least 200 years. The car ferry service began no later than the 1950s and had finished by the mid-1980s, hence the small section of A741 found in Yoker. The car ferry service probably ended due to a reduction in traffic after the nearby Clyde Tunnel opened in 1963, and Erskine Bridge which opened in 1971.
Links
Renfrew-Yoker Ferry
