A494 road

The A494 is a trunk road in Wales. The route, which is officially known as the Dolgellau to South of Birkenhead Trunk Road, runs between the terminus of the M56 motorway between Mollington and Capenhurst and the A470 at Dolgellau, Gwynedd. Its northern sections remain among the busiest roads in Wales.HistoryThe original routes into North Wales meant using fords when the Dee estuary was at low tide north west of Chester. But when the river was canalised in the 1730s several new coach roads were laid out through Sealand, Shotton and Queensferry. These were built by the Dee Company under the River Dee Act of 1743 to serve the hand-operated ferries which had replaced the fords.By 1861 the ferry at Shotton was steam operated, with an engine house on the Queensferry side. In 1897 the ferry was replaced by an innovative retractable bridge because of increasing mechanised transport. The Queen Victoria Jubilee Toll Bridge, which was built from iron, stone and wood, could retract its middle sections for the passage of river traffic. However, by the early 1920s, increasing numbers of motor vehicles and the narrowness of the bridge made the area notorious for traffic congestion. These issues prompted its replacement.