M1

M1

London-Yorkshire Motorway

London to Hook Moor

The M1 is Britain's first full-length motorway and possibly its most iconic. It is also one of the most important, forming the main road north from London, serving the industrial East Midlands and the most populous areas of Yorkshire before handing the north-south baton to the A1(M) near Leeds.

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M1

M1

The main road north from London is missing the connections that would have integrated it with London's planned urban motorways.

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M1

The Minister's cake 24 January 2019

In 1968, the Minister of Transport travelled up to Yorkshire to open a long length of the brand new M1. There was just one problem. Where was the cake?

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Mistakes

Making road signs is a tricky business, but fortunately the professionals who design them get it right. Usually.

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What's new

Signs and sensibility

The one great attempt to make London’s streets logical - and how one retired chauffeur’s favourite routes changed the way you get around the capital.

A bridge under troubled bridges

A bridge that was ruined by another bridge, and a type of highway planning beyond any of the UK’s worst nightmares.

The monster seen from below

What might it have been like to stand in one spot and witness the arrival, and the uncertainty, of plans for an urban motorway in West London?

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North Cross Route

The route and the history of the North Cross Route, proposed in the 1960s as the northern side of London's innermost motorway ring road.