A railway, the Bristol Port Railway, was built through the gorge on the east side from Hotwells to Avonmouth between 1863 and 1865. The Portishead Railway was opened on the west side in 1867. The section of the Bristol Port Railway between Hotwells and Sneyd Park junction was closed in 1922, when construction of a major road through the gorge, the Portway, was started. The Portway was opened in 1926. The road is now part of the A4 road, linking Bristol city centre to the M5 motorway, which bypasses the city near Avonmouth. In the late 1990s the wide pavement through nearly all the Avon Gorge was designated to be legally usable by both cyclists and the fewer pedestrians.