Motorists in Inverness could face weeks of traffic chaos as construction begins on a new “bus gate” project in the city centre next week.
Work will start next Tuesday on Millburn Road to build a new junction to King Duncan’s Road to allow bus only access to the new Inverness Campus and Raigmore Estate.
At present buses and other traffic wanting to access Raigmore Estate need to go around the Raigmore Interchange and double back towards the city centre.
The works are expected to last up to eight weeks and will require the closure of one lane of each carriageway on Millburn Road.
Temporary traffic lights will be installed close to the current pedestrian crossing point. Restrictions will also be in place on the other three approaches to the Millburn roundabout.
The new junction will allow buses only to access King Duncan’s Road while avoiding the Raigmore Interchange completely.
They can then continue through Raigmore Estate and drop passengers near the pedestrian bridge to Inverness Campus which was installed across the A9 in 2013.
The bus gate will include controlled traffic signals and a pedestrian crossing.
The project was due to start on April 20 but was postponed for a week after the major Academy Street blaze two weeks ago led to several city centre streets being shut and resulting congestion.
Developers Highlands and Islands Enterprise and contractor Pat Munro jointly decided to delay the project to minimise disruption to traffic.
Planning permission in principle for the changes to the road layout was agreed by Highland Council’s south planning applications committee in 2014.