A470

A470

Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff

Think of the busiest roads in Wales and you will inevitably think of the M4 and the A55. Often overlooked is the A470 between Cardiff and Merthyr Tydfil, a remarkable road that is, by any meaningful measure, an urban motorway.

Routes

A470 End to End

The road that connects Wales together, but which nobody really uses... All five hours of the A470, from Llandudno to Cardiff, are here.

Routes

What's new

The road that made no sense

It was the UK's only single-carriageway motorway, and twenty years ago it ceased to exist. This is the story of the strange fascination it held, and of my place in history.

The forever bottleneck, part 2

The second part of the story, where we learn why exactly the M4 gets narrower on the final approach to Europe’s biggest city.

The forever bottleneck, part 1

The M4 into London was one of the UK's earliest and most ambitious motorway projects. It was bold, pioneering... and almost instantly regretted.

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To the Limit

Speed limits are more emotive and divisive than almost anything else about the road network. How do you sort the fact from the opinion? And how did we end up with the speed limits we have?