The road begins with a junction with the A956 near King Street in Aberdeen city centre, as a dual carriageway and goes on to form part of the Mounthooly roundabout. It then exits Aberdeen to the North West, meeting the A90 at the Haudagain Roundabout, a notoriously busy junction. It then passes Bucksburn, and has a junction with Aberdeen Airport. The road is then dual carriageway until Inverurie, where it becomes single carriageway at the second roundabout, and from then on is mostly single carriageway until just before it meets the A9 in Inverness.
History
The A96 has a poor safety record in the substantial single carriageway section, and the road has topped polls to find the most unpopular roads in Scotland on more than one occasion. Debate about a new section of road to bypass Fochabers took place for a number of years. When the new bridge was built over the River Spey, it was built to be in line with a possible northern route. The bypass is to the north of Fochabers and south of Mosstodloch, construction started on 2 February 2010 and was opened in January 2012. The road still passes through many major towns on the route, including Elgin, Nairn and Keith. The A96 was formerly part of the Euroroute system, of route E120 which ran in a circular route between Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee and Perth.
A new bridge called the Inveramsay Bridge is being constructed on the A96 northwest of Inverurie. This bridge will go over the Aberdeen-Inverness railway line instead of under it like the existing one. The existing one is not wide enough for 2 tall vehicles to fit under it so traffic lights were put in place, but caused serious congestion during peak hours.
A96 Dualling
The Scottish Government has announced plans to upgrade the A96 road to dual carriageway by the year 2030, at a cost of £3 billion. The project includes dualling the 88 miles of the A96 that is not dual carriageway between Aberdeen and Inverness, An 18-mile section of the A96 between Inverness and Auldearn and will bypass Nairn will be the first section of the A96 to be dualled.
