Routes between major cities/towns in the pre-motorway era

[Steven]

That's brilliant. 1972 must have been a revolution for road travel across the Midlands.

It was, but it always beats me why such a huge conurbation had to wait for so long, while the M6 from jct 13 to 35 was completed 7 years earlier. Logically, Coventry and Birmingham should have been by passed first.

The other major city in the area was bypassed in 1970, when the M5 and M6 met. It's easy to get tied up in 1972, but there was motorway right through the centre of the confirmation two years earlier.

In addition, long distance SE-NW traffic already bypassed the conurbation via the likes of A5, A452, A446 etc.

[Berk]

That's brilliant. 1972 must have been a revolution for road travel across the Midlands.

It was, but it always beats me why such a huge conurbation had to wait for so long, while the M6 from jct 13 to 35 was completed 7 years earlier. Logically, Coventry and Birmingham should have been by passed first.

That wouldn’t have helped a majority of the traffic. Typically journeys on the major road network are much more local in nature than you think, and that would have been even more true in the 1950s and 60s. Traffic heading south from Lancashire towards the Birmingham area was - and still is - overwhelmingly going to the Birmingham area and not past it.

If you think about it, the M6 is elevated from J5 to 10a - I realise that may not coincide with everyone’s definition of elevated, but it does mean running in over bridges, not at grade.

That’s obviously quite an intricate, labour-intensive type of construction. So I’m guessing it must’ve convinced planners to delay construction of the Coventry section, until the Birmingham section was almost complete. It couldn’t have been built before 1970 anyway - most of the land hadn’t been compulsorily purchased before then. My grandfather was chief valuation officer in that district back then.

[Owain]

I'm catching the ferry from Newhaven on Sunday, and I've decided to drive the bit from London as though the motorways weren't there. There are so many options:

A1 and A5 into London - vetoed, because I've driven them

A10 into London - very attractive, because it's dead simple and leads straight towards the A3

But what then?

A2-A20-A26

A2-A20-A21-A26

A3-A23-A22

A3-A24

The A23 is vetoed because it's the only F99 road in 2 zone that I've completed.

[Glenn A]

Driving from somewhere like Bristol to London before the M4 was simple, you just used the A4, but driving from London to Carlisle, gave you a choice of routes.

[Owain]

Driving from somewhere like Bristol to London before the M4 was simple, you just used the A4, but driving from London to Carlisle, gave you a choice of routes.

Whereas for Gloucester to London, you might have followed the A40, or just as easily taken the A417-A329(or whatever it was in 1922)-A4.

[Glenn A]

Driving from somewhere like Bristol to London before the M4 was simple, you just used the A4, but driving from London to Carlisle, gave you a choice of routes.

Whereas for Gloucester to London, you might have followed the A40, or just as easily taken the A417-A329(or whatever it was in 1922)-A4.

The A40 would be more logical, but there is the alternative of meeting the A4. Another interesting one would be Leeds- London, you could pick up the A1 from the A63 near Micklefield, or use the A61/A638 route to Doncaster.

[SteveA30]

Might as well repost from 2018....

From Fleet to holidays in the Lake District and North Wales in 69/70/71, the route as far as I recall was via A5 each time as the M5 gap meant going through Birmingham. It was Reading, Wallingford, A423 to Oxford bypass, A43 to M1 or perhaps A5, all the way to the M6 at J3. The A5 was solid lorries through Cannock. At least once, we took the A34 from there northwards over Cannock Chase.
There were plenty of cafes along the A5, still one or two now, like this one on Oct 1 1995

SMT note: Attachment deleted for copyright reasons.