60 years of motorways 05 December 2018
Today marks the sixtieth birthday of the motorway network, and of one entirely forgotten bridge in Lancashire.
Routes
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Preston Bypass
M6 Preston Bypass
The "Preston By-Pass" was Britain's first motorway, opened in 1958. These books show the road as it was on opening day and share some of the thrill of this pioneering project.
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Preston Bypass
The very first motorway was eight miles of relief for the Lancashire town of Preston. It goes without saying that there's an interesting story to be told about it.
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Histories
Sir James Drake
County Surveyor and Bridgemaster for Lancashire in the 1950s and 60s, Drake was instrumental in the motorway revolution.
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Biographies
What's new
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?
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.
Have you seen...
Daniel "Swampy" Hooper
Britain's most famous anti-road protester, who shot to fame in the mid-1990s and came to represent the whole environmental movement.
