The A26 is a road in Northern Ireland. It travels in a north–south direction from Coleraine, County Londonderry to Banbridge, County Down. The road is a primary route between Coleraine and its junction with the M1, and a secondary route between Lurgan and Banbridge. Some sections of the road are dual carriageway, notably between Ballymena and the route's junction with the M2 and M22. Route The A26 begins at the Lodge Road Roundabout on the outskirts of Coleraine, one of the junctions on the Coleraine ring road. A 1 km stretch of dual-carriageway, passing the Causeway Hospital, yields to single-carriageway after the Wattstown Roundabout towards Ballymoney. A further stretch of dual-carriageway is provided on the border of County Londonderry and County Antrim near Macfin, including the first of many crossings of the Belfast-Derry railway. On reaching Ballymoney, the A26 route skirts past the town, and meets the B62 Ballybogy Road towards Portrush at a roundabout. Further junctions along the Ballymoney by-pass meet with the B66 to Dervock, the B147 to Stranocum, and the B16 to Armoy. The A26 continues, as the Frosses Road, in a south-east direction towards Ballymena, meeting the A44 from Ballycastle at a roundabout. From here, a new high quality dual-carriageway begins crossing the River Main near Glarryford. A section of the original route of the A26 progressed through a series of trees originally built on bogland. The "Frosses Trees" are a collection of Scots pines planted by Sir Charles Lanyon in 1839 as a means of preventing the road from subsiding. 50 of the trees were removed in 1999, and a further 26 of the trees were felled in July 2007, for safety reasons. This section is now bypassed on the new dual-carriageway with access to the original road maintained as rest areas. The A26 continues towards Ballymena before drivers are offered to turn-off-to-stay-on the route, to continue into Ballymena town centre, or to by-pass the town via the M2. Traffic on the M2 then rejoins the A26 on its last roundabout junction, and the route continues to Antrim as dual-carriageway towards its junction with the M2 and M22. Original plans for Northern Ireland's motorway network had the M2 route running from its diverge with the M22 near Antrim and continuing past Ballymena towards Coleraine, but on the suspension of the Northern Ireland government in 1975, the M2 link between Antrim and Ballymena remained unbuilt. The