Why are some Motorways numbered similar to A roads the replaced and others not?

[SBRoxMan]

I think the current system works and renumbering motorways would be pointless. The M5. one of the most important motorways in the country, sounds so much more important than M38 or A38(M), which in the latter's case means Aston Expressway. M2 and M4 are logical, replacing the A2 and A4 respectively.

To be fair, the M5 would've still been regarded as one of the most important motorways even if it were numbered as M38. Let's look as the M62 as an example. It's one of the most (if not the most) important motorways in the north, and its number designation didn't affect it.

[domcoop]

Are we certain that the M52 number was never used? Maybe before it was completed? I read an article by someone (irritatingly I can't remember for certain and Google doesn't bring anything up), I think it was Cherie Blair (who grew up in Liverpool) years ago and she (or whoever wrote it) said they remember travelling on the motorway when it first opened and it was the M52 at first. Whilst I can't remember much about it (I know, this anecdote is about as helpful as "my mate in the pub says his cousin's best mate's sister said ..." that line stuck out and I've always assumed that to be true (knowing as I do that M52 was indeed the original plan)

[Steven]

Are we certain that the M52 number was never used? Maybe before it was completed? I read an article by someone (irritatingly I can't remember for certain and Google doesn't bring anything up), I think it was Cherie Blair (who grew up in Liverpool) years ago and she (or whoever wrote it) said they remember travelling on the motorway when it first opened and it was the M52 at first. Whilst I can't remember much about it (I know, this anecdote is about as helpful as "my mate in the pub says his cousin's best mate's sister said ..." that line stuck out and I've always assumed that to be true (knowing as I do that M52 was indeed the original plan)

Yes, we're certain the M52 number was never used in the field.

[domcoop]

Are we certain that the M52 number was never used? Maybe before it was completed? I read an article by someone (irritatingly I can't remember for certain and Google doesn't bring anything up), I think it was Cherie Blair (who grew up in Liverpool) years ago and she (or whoever wrote it) said they remember travelling on the motorway when it first opened and it was the M52 at first. Whilst I can't remember much about it (I know, this anecdote is about as helpful as "my mate in the pub says his cousin's best mate's sister said ..." that line stuck out and I've always assumed that to be true (knowing as I do that M52 was indeed the original plan)

Yes, we're certain the M52 number was never used in the field.

Thanks!

It was bugging me, so I looked it up and Cherie Blair does indeed say in her autobiography that "when the M52 Motorway (as it was called then) opened in 1973, I was one of the few to take advantage of it".

I can only find an online excerpt on Google Books in the Dutch language, but it is there and I know it's in the English one since that's when I first read it! https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mdF ... 22&f=false

So I assume a ghostwriter - who'd probably never been to Liverpool or the M62 - was given a brief to embellish her childhood story and researched it, discovered the M52 background and put it in thinking they were being historically accurate then.

[Bryn666]

Someone's commented about the same thing on Pathetic Motorways back in 2008 too. Sheesh, and all that.

In 1973 the only bit of the Liverpool-Manchester route in service was Tarbock Island to Croft, it is entirely possible the local media called it the M52 because of the planning but the signs definitely read M62 on opening day.

I think this is entirely the Mandela Effect on Cherie Blair's part.

[KeithW]

Thanks!

It was bugging me, so I looked it up and Cherie Blair does indeed say in her autobiography that "when the M52 Motorway (as it was called then) opened in 1973, I was one of the few to take advantage of it".

I can only find an online excerpt on Google Books in the Dutch language, but it is there and I know it's in the English one since that's when I first read it! https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mdF ... 22&f=false

So I assume a ghostwriter - who'd probably never been to Liverpool or the M62 - was given a brief to embellish her childhood story and researched it, discovered the M52 background and put it in thinking they were being historically accurate then.

Most likely it was simply an typographical error, they have a way of gaining a life of their own.

[domcoop]

Someone's commented about the same thing on Pathetic Motorways back in 2008 too. Sheesh, and all that.

In 1973 the only bit of the Liverpool-Manchester route in service was Tarbock Island to Croft, it is entirely possible the local media called it the M52 because of the planning but the signs definitely read M62 on opening day.

I think this is entirely the Mandela Effect on Cherie Blair's part.

Now I'm wondering whether *I*'m experiencing the Mandela effect! (i.e. I remember it from Pathetic Motorways rather than the original book, which although I have read some time ago I couldn't tell you anything else about!)

Either way thanks all for clearing up that it was never signed M52!

[Chris5156]

Most likely it was simply an typographical error, they have a way of gaining a life of their own.

I’m not sure how to square that with the context:
"when the M52 Motorway (as it was called then) opened in 1973, I was one of the few to take advantage of it"

If it was a typo for “M62”, the sentence makes no sense. Why would the author have put “as it was called then” if they were using the number the motorway still has?

[wrinkly]

In 1973 the only bit of the Liverpool-Manchester route in service was Tarbock Island to Croft, it is entirely possible the local media called it the M52 because of the planning but the signs definitely read M62 on opening day.

Notices in the London Gazette show that the Croft to Tarbock section was known as M62 at least by 1968 when the orders were made. I haven't checked earlier than that.