M74 motorway

The M74 is a motorway in Scotland that links Glasgow with the Scottish-English border near Gretna. It runs south-east from the M8 in Glasgow, passing towns such as Uddingston, Hamilton and Motherwell before becoming the A74(M) beyond Abington. The route continues past Moffat and Lockerbie, briefly enters England, and becomes the M6 near Longtown. This motorway is worth the journey because it forms part of the unsigned E05 Euroroute from Greenock to Algeciras. Its history goes back to the 1930s when the A74 was upgraded from a single-carriageway road to dual carriageway. The northern section around Hamilton was built as a three-lane dual carriageway in the 1960s. Later extensions in the 1980s and 1990s upgraded the route to motorway standard, including bypasses of Lesmahagow and Abington. A visitor finds a wide, fast road with multiple junctions and elevated sections through Glasgow districts. The motorway passes close to Clyde Valley towns and bypasses upland towns such as Moffat and Lockerbie. North of junction 4 it carries the E05 route, while south of that point the E05 follows the M73 and M8 towards Greenock.