Come this weekend, some of you will be taking to the motorway! Why not tee up
MJT Motorways with @jasonhazeley.bsky.social ready for those long stretches of grey.
With any luck I’ll be back on the M40.
Potentially one from every decade there!
Screenshot of a graphic from the Simulator, showing a Smart Motorway gantry sign at junction 6 of the M6, Spaghetti Junction.
The M6 has just arrived on the Simulator, ready for you to take a virtual drive to Carlisle (or Rugby). I've also added the M69 so you can get to and from the north when you reach the M1. Just open the Simulator to give it a spin: sim.roads.org.uk
Leeds was full of these when I was a kid, all painted the same muddy brown. You could always spot them because the post was so much thicker than it needed to be, stepped on the way up, and the outreach bracket was hung from a diagonal brace. Some tilted back with the weight of the wires removed.
You can read the full story about the M4 in West London - without brick-related anecdotes but with a whole lot more trivia - starting with the first part here: roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-foreve... 5/5
Photograph of a view along the wall of the Chiswick Flyover showing the taper down where the ramp used to be, highlighted by different types of mortar. Photo from Google Streetview.
It didn’t work. The bricks matched OK, but the mortar did not. Sixty years on you can still see where the wall used to taper down to the ground when it formed a ramp. 4/5
At their insistence, and at some cost, the Ministry of Transport stored a large number of bricks nearby so that they would weather at the same rate, and then used them to extend the walls upwards when the time came. This pleased the Royal Fine Art Commission no end. 3/5
The Royal Fine Art Commission were deeply worried about this, because it would mean putting brand new bricks on top of bricks that had weathered for five years. 2/5
Things that didn’t fit into my recent M4 posts, #1: when the Chiswick Flyover was built it was known the western ramp was temporary and its brick walls would be extended upwards to support the road at its final upper level. 🧵 1/5
I think the tower is Barratt now isn’t it? Doesn’t have quite the same ring!
Photograph of a road viaduct under construction, with beams being lifted into place to form the deck. An array of sliproads cross up and down between the top and bottom decks.
Black and white photograph of the Chiswick Flyover and Great West Road with work in progress to build foundations for the M4's viaduct.
Black and white photograph looking up at the Brentford Viaduct under construction. An apparatus called the "octopus" - a sort of large crane - stands on top of the incomplete structure and is winching huge concrete beams up from a lorry on the road below.
Some pictures from the construction of the M4 Brentford Viaduct circa 1963. On Friday I posted part 2 of my history of this pioneering, highly experimental project that got so much right - and one very important thing very wrong. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-foreve...
That’s amazing! Perhaps faring better in a warmer climate?
Collyhurst Road, junction with Eggington St, in Manchester captured by the Corporation's official photographer in 1964; the black & white image shows a marvellous traffic sign "Bends of 1/2 Mile" and is on a striped post behind safety railings. Houses line the street and on the corner of Eggington Street on the left someone about to pop-in to the corner shop. In the distance a 'School' traffic sign with red triangle and a railway bridge spanning the road. A large mill chimney is in the distance.
Collyhurst Road, junction with Eggington St, in Manchester captured by the Corporation's official photographer in 1964; marvellous traffic sign & someone about to pop-in to the corner shop. @showmeasign.online @sabre-roads.org.uk @roads.org.uk #Manchester #1960s
(Image/Manchester Archives)
That’s astounding - you’d never guess what was there.
Thank you so much, I’m delighted by this!
That’s so good to know, thank you!
Some people, by the way, think an extended 6,000-word essay in two parts is too much detail for the story of one old motorway project.
Those people are not my target audience 🤷♂️
Graphic showing a red-coloured map of the M4 passing through West London, overlaid with the text "The forever bottleneck, part 2: The M4 in West London may have been bold and innovative, but if you've never built a motorway before you're bound to make some mistakes."
Just published, the second part of my deep dive into a surprisingly experimental road project - the M4 in West London, with its lane drop and associated permanent traffic jam. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
A grey metal rectangular box with the City of London coat of arms shield on it (a red cross on a white background with a red sword pointing upwards in the top left quadrant). Above the shield is a hole where the arm of the street lighting would have been inserted. This probably dates from the 1970s.
A modern version - the box containing the operating gear of the lantern is now designed in the shape of the coat of arms shield itself (see description in previous image). Protruding from the top is a long decorated arm upon which the lantern would be positioned.
It’s Saturday Morning Municipal Street Lighting Nerd Club. The City of London has tended to affix much of its street lighting to buildings, and here are two examples of the kit it has used. I’m not sure the rather odd and ornate extension on the newer one on the right ever saw any action…
Also, if I can open a bank account on your banking app, I should be able to close it without visiting a branch.
I got a lot of stick for that at the time!
The bus lane is long gone now, but the traffic jams aren't because the motorway still narrows down. Yesterday I published the first of a two-part series uncovering the secrets of the M4 between Chiswick and Langley, home to this unfixable bottleneck. 4/4 roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-foreve...
Black and white photograph showing a view along the Great West Road from above, with an unfinished motorway being built above the road and between industrial and suburban buildings.
Why does the M4 do that? There is a reason, and it involves engineers who had never designed a motorway before, a government Ministry that wasn't asking the right questions, and a project that was so full of experiments that one of its bold new ideas was bound to backfire. 3/4
Everyone had an opinion, but not many considered how it was able to exist. The third lane of the M4, you see, is kind of redundant - the motorway eventually narrows down from three lanes to two, and the awful queues that build up were the thing the bus lane was meant to bypass. 2/4
Photograph of a motorway, seen from a bridge, with three lanes of traffic heading away from the camera. Two are open to general traffic but the right-hand lane is coloured red and marked as a bus lane. A blue and yellow "Megabus" is travelling in the bus lane.
Do you remember the controversy around the M4 Bus Lane? It lived a short and eventful existence, stirring up more frustration than almost anything else on the roads. 1/4 🧵
Thank you for the repost!
Thank you! The video is amazing - and made me laugh that he clearly couldn't find any space in the car park at the end. He just pretends to park in one of the roadways.
The M4 gets further in to London than any other motorway. It's a good road, except for the all-day jams where three lanes narrow to two. Why does it do that? Today I've published the first of two posts that try to find the answer. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
Just published: the M4 into London was one of the UK's most innovative road projects when it opened. So why does it also contain a fatal flaw? In the first of two parts we take a deep dive into the highly experimental motorway through Brentford. #london #m4 open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
