M42

[Peter350]

The M6 should always have gone down the general M40 line rather than hitting the M1, even if that meant a full blown but two-digit motorway linking the M1 to Birmingham. It could have been called, I don't know, the M45.

Your idea makes a lot of sense. The full blown two-digit motorway could (and should) have been extended east of the M1 as part of a strategic route connecting the West Midlands with the East Anglian ports, and while motorway numbering does not generally reflect the A road which the motorway supersedes, the A45 used to terminate in Felixstowe, so the M45 would have been a very appropriate number.

What would you do with the existing M45 though?

[Robert Kilcoyne]

The M6 should always have gone down the general M40 line rather than hitting the M1, even if that meant a full blown but two-digit motorway linking the M1 to Birmingham. It could have been called, I don't know, the M45.

Your idea makes a lot of sense. The full blown two-digit motorway could (and should) have been extended east of the M1 as part of a strategic route connecting the West Midlands with the East Anglian ports, and while motorway numbering does not generally reflect the A road which the motorway supersedes, the A45 used to terminate in Felixstowe, so the M45 would have been a very appropriate number.

What would you do with the existing M45 though?

I would have renumbered it as a Mxxx, M450 would have been the easiest solution as many existing signs could have been patched.

[Robert Kilcoyne]

In fact, there doesn’t seem to have been any plan for Gloucester traffic at all, other than send it past Warwick, and Bromsgrove. Was no thought ever given to building a new road branching off the A44??

A little hard to wind it through the Cotswolds, I imagine.

There was a proposal in the 70s to dual the A40 between Witney and the M5 and have it pass to the south of Cheltenham. It would have had GSJs and be similar to the A34 between Oxford and Winchester. The Cotswolds would have been no obstacle back then.

The route of the proposed Cheltenham bypass would have been interesting. Would the bypass have passed close to Cheltenham or followed a more southerly route on an alignment similar to the A436 and A417, therefore including the Air Balloon junction and meeting the M5 where the A417 does now?

[Truvelo]

The route of the proposed Cheltenham bypass would have been interesting. Would the bypass have passed close to Cheltenham or followed a more southerly route on an alignment similar to the A436 and A417, therefore including the Air Balloon junction and meeting the M5 where the A417 does now?

There were several possible routes, including a new M5 junction in between 11 and 11a.

[Steven]

The M6 should always have gone down the general M40 line rather than hitting the M1, even if that meant a full blown but two-digit motorway linking the M1 to Birmingham. It could have been called, I don't know, the M45.

Your idea makes a lot of sense. The full blown two-digit motorway could (and should) have been extended east of the M1 as part of a strategic route connecting the West Midlands with the East Anglian ports, and while motorway numbering does not generally reflect the A road which the motorway supersedes, the A45 used to terminate in Felixstowe, so the M45 would have been a very appropriate number.

What would you do with the existing M45 though?

The original proposal for the M45 was for it to become the Midlands Links, passing south of Coventry instead of to the north.

[Glenn A]

The M45 was intended to give Rugby and Coventry faster access to the M1 and the south in the pre M6 days. I'd imagine until the M6 was completed, this would have been the principal route from Coventry to London. Nowadays it seems a lot quieter as there is the alternative of the M6.

[Bryn666]

The M45 was intended to give Rugby and Coventry faster access to the M1 and the south in the pre M6 days. I'd imagine until the M6 was completed, this would have been the principal route from Coventry to London. Nowadays it seems a lot quieter as there is the alternative of the M6.

The M45 was built to be the main link to Birmingham from the M1, as explained a few posts up.

[KeithW]

The M45 was built to be the main link to Birmingham from the M1, as explained a few posts up.

Indeed and would have been associated with the A45 which was the traditional link from Ipswich to the West Midlands via Cambridge and Northampton but the new A1/M1 link road was instead called the A14 and took a more southerly route to the M1 at Catthorpe while the A45 from Cambridge to Felixstowe was renumbered as the A14. Had things gone a little differently we might have been discussing the building of a new section of the M45 from Cambridge to Brampton Hut instead of the A14(M).

[Glenn A]

Could it have been possible during the 12 year gap between the opening of the M45 and the completion of the M6 that the A45 could have been upgraded to a D3M as far as Solihull?

[Steven]

Could it have been possible during the 12 year gap between the opening of the M45 and the completion of the M6 that the A45 could have been upgraded to a D3M as far as Solihull?

No.

[KeithW]

Could it have been possible during the 12 year gap between the opening of the M45 and the completion of the M6 that the A45 could have been upgraded to a D3M as far as Solihull?

If you are talking only about the A45 from the M1 to Solihull yes however the vision was always that the M6 would carry on up to Preston and while there was a clear transport corridor to the north of Birmingham this was not true from Solihull.

From Northampton to Wellingbrough the A45 was OK by the standards of the day but from there it was awful and ran along what is now the B645 through Kimbolton.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.29672 ... 6656?hl=en

What most people did at the time was use the A605/A604 to Brampton Hut and then the A1 to St Neots and pick up the A45 there. The A604 east of Brampton to Cambridge via Huntingdon was best avoided before the viaduct was built in 1975 as you had to hack through Huntingdon town centre and go over the old town bridge while the stretch from Godmanchester to Cambridge was downright dangerous with lethal stretches of 3 lane suicide road. It was 1980 before that was a good route.



.

[JohnnyMo]

Could it have been possible during the 12 year gap between the opening of the M45 and the completion of the M6 that the A45 could have been upgraded to a D3M as far as Solihull?

No.

I agree, the A45 looks like it was upgraded as part of the Motorway 1 project, just as parts of the A1 & A6 were ( North Circular to M10 ).

The difference is the M45 & A45 haven't needed serious upgrading since.

[Glenn A]

Could it have been possible during the 12 year gap between the opening of the M45 and the completion of the M6 that the A45 could have been upgraded to a D3M as far as Solihull?

No.

I agree, the A45 looks like it was upgraded as part of the Motorway 1 project, just as parts of the A1 & A6 were ( North Circular to M10 ).

The difference is the M45 & A45 haven't needed serious upgrading since.

The A45's big selling point in the pre M6 era was it by passed Coventry and was mostly D2 by the 1960s.

[Fluid Dynamics]

Go back 40 years, and getting from Birmingham to the South Coast was hindered by the largely S2 A34 as far as Oxford( south of Oxford was less of a problem as the road was largely D2). Also another reason for the M40 could have been to take pressure off an increasingly busy M6 and M1 and offer an alternative route to London from the Midlands.

Because the A34 between Shirley and Oxford was almost entirely S2 (with the exception of the small section near Yarnton) and was regularly congested in Stratford-upon-Avon, many drivers used the alternative "Banbury" route via the A41 and the then A423 (now A4260), which became more attractive after Warwick was bypassed. The problem would be that these two routes would in effect converge on the Oxford Ring Road, and the Peartree Roundabout would become notorious for delays.

That's the route I used from East Birmingham to Reading in the '70s - a fast run was possible outside peak hours with no cameras in those days.

The M40 opened whilst I was at Warwick University, the route I most regularly took before it opened from the south coast was A34/A429/A46. I did use the A423 now and then, but taking the A429 avoided Banbury.

[Truvelo]

No.

I agree, the A45 looks like it was upgraded as part of the Motorway 1 project, just as parts of the A1 & A6 were ( North Circular to M10 ).

The difference is the M45 & A45 haven't needed serious upgrading since.

The A45's big selling point in the pre M6 era was it by passed Coventry and was mostly D2 by the 1960s.

In the early 1970s there were proposals to grade separate all the junctions around Coventry. If this had been done along with the viaduct from Hay Mills to Sheldon, the GSJ proposals for the A445 junction in the early 90s and the missing underpass on Small Heath Highway there would only be three roundabouts between the Middleway in Birmingham and the M45. One of these roundabouts at the B4455 clearly has provision for a GSJ so that could potentially leave just two roundabouts remaining. This would then be a superb alternative to the M6 whenever there is a incident, or at the moment a long boring stretch of 50mph Specs