Port Talbot - Transport

Transport

Port Talbot is served by the South Wales Main Line at Port Talbot Parkway railway station. South Wales travel to Goytre and other places where there are local as well as direct intercity trains to Swansea, Cardiff, London and Manchester. Port Talbot bus station, located adjacent to the Aberafan Centre in the centre of the town is the main bus transport hub in the town. It is a National Express stop. Local bus services are provided by First Cymru, South Wales Transport & Veolia Transport Cymru. The bus station's layout is very distinctive for the fact that buses always have to perform a 270° clockwise turn to exit the station.

The M4 motorway cuts through the town from southeast to northwest, crossing a central area on a concrete viaduct, junctions 38 to 41 serve Port Talbot, with junctions 40 and 41 being in the commercial heart of the town. This busy urban stretch of the M4, with tight bends, 2-lane carriageways, short narrow slip roads and concrete walls on both sides, was the first length of motorway in Wales when it opened to traffic in 1966. The road has a speed limit of 50 mph (80 km/h) enforced with a speed camera in the eastbound direction. The stretch through Port Talbot town centre is a particular traffic congestion blackspot and there have been calls to close the slip roads at junctions 40 and 41 to improve traffic flow. However some commuters oppose this plan since it would add more time to their journey. A new dual carriageway relief road, the Port Talbot Peripheral Distribution Road (PDR), is planned for completion in 2012. The new carriageway will serve as a distributor road to the southwest of Port Talbot, beginning at M4 Junction 38 ending near Junction 41.

The Port Talbot Docks complex consist of an inner set of floating docks and an outer tidal basin. Construction of the tidal basin began in 1964 and the whole basin covers about 500 acres (2.0 km2). The tidal basin is capable of handling ships of up to 170,000 dwt and is used mostly for the import of iron ore and coal for use by nearby Port Talbot Steelworks. The inner floating docks were constructed in 1898 and were closed in 1959. They were re-opened in 1998 for commercial shipping but in March 2007 for the import of some steel products and are capable of handling ships of up to 8,000 dwt. There have been proposals for the development of an intermodal freight terminal at the port.