Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
@roads.org.uk
I write about UK road infrastructure and history! Join me for updates and other stuff from the UK's favourite roads website, www.roads.org.uk
If you’ve ever driven in London, your journey was probably influenced by one retired government driver’s favourite routes. This is the story of how Mr. Beardon unwittingly recast London’s road network. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/signs-and-...
Signs and sensibility
The one great attempt to make London’s streets logical - and how one retired chauffeur’s favourite routes changed the way you get around the capital.
roadsorguk.substack.com
Just published: the one great attempt to make London’s streets logical, and how one retired chauffeur’s favourite routes changed the way you get around the capital. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/signs-and-...
I wasn’t going to write while I was away, but sometimes you find something so completely arresting that you have to share it, if only to see if everyone else feels the same goggle-eyed bewilderment. Join me in a brief trip to Tokyo’s Nihonbashi Bridge. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/a-bridge-u...
A bridge under troubled bridges
A visit to Japan to see a bridge that was ruined by another bridge, and a type of highway planning beyond any of the UK’s worst nightmares.
roadsorguk.substack.com
Just published: great economy or urban vandalism? Nihonbashi Bridge in Tokyo is everything that’s wrong with thoughtless planning, but a fix is in sight. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/a-bridge-u...
Wobbly wobbly jelly people only. (No, not a manufacturing defect, this is the official design, which a whole committee of people must have looked at and thought, yes, that’s the one.)
I’m away this summer, so please enjoy this piece I wrote for the Friends of Brompton Cemetery Magazine earlier this year, about one of London’s unbuilt motorways, and what it might have been like to try to exist alongside it.
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?
roadsorguk.substack.com
This is a lovely piece from Chris that he wrote for the Friends of Brompton Cemetery magazine for me earlier this year. If you're interested in unbuilt London and mid-century urban history. it's absolutely for you cc @theroyalparks.bsky.social
Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@roads.org.uk · 2mo agoWhat would it have been like to stand in one specific place and see one of London’s vast unbuilt urban motorways going by? Join me for a trip to Brompton Cemetery in West London and we’ll see if we can picture it. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-monste...
What would it have been like to stand in one specific place and see one of London’s vast unbuilt urban motorways going by? Join me for a trip to Brompton Cemetery in West London and we’ll see if we can picture it. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-monste...
It’s the short-lived “French horn” sign at Strensham! See my history of this one notorious sliproad here: www.roads.org.uk/blog/imperfe...
Bryn Buck 🏳️🌈💛🤍💜🖤@showmeasign.online · 3mo agoNot my photos but here's two examples of accidentally capturing something we didn't think there was a single record of. This is the sign discussed here: www.roads.org.uk/blog/imperfe... TAKE PHOTOS. You may never know what you're accidentally preserving forever.
Happy birthday to the East Lancs Road - now the A580 - the Liverpool-East Lancashire Road - that was formally opened on this day by HM King George V on this day in 1934 as one of the UK's first inter-city arterial roads. @showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk
Just arrived on the Simulator, a virtual drive down to Exeter on the M5 - perfect for a sunny summer weekend away! Plus the little M49 is here, if you’d rather get lost around Avonmouth. Jump in at sim.roads.org.uk.
The first Labour GLC administration in 1965 had ambitious urban motorway plans. But the public mood had changed by the early 1970s, the lived experience of Westway being one (but by no means only) nail in the coffin of those plans. By 1973, the campaign message was firmly anti-motorway:
It's also worth it's not the only single-carriageway motorway, but the only numbered completely single-carriageway motorway - there's still the section of the M58 left, even if the A601(M) has also been downgraded. Then there's the Walton Summit Motorway... www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/Walton_...
Making sure you're not a bot!
sabre-roads.org.uk
Why are transport enthusiasts marking the loss of the A6144(M), twenty years on? My latest post is a deep dive into the strange story of one of the UK's strangest roads. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
I also made a video about the A6144(M)'s impact on roadgeekery (including references to Chris here!) youtu.be/29qMrgytK0Q?...
I'm back... almost
YouTube video by Bryn Buck
youtu.be
Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@roads.org.uk · 4mo agoJust published - it's the twentieth anniversary of an inconsequential administrative change in Greater Manchester. Why do people still remember the short-lived A6144(M)? It's the latest post in my occasional series, Imperfectly Odd. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
Just published - it's the twentieth anniversary of an inconsequential administrative change in Greater Manchester. Why do people still remember the short-lived A6144(M)? It's the latest post in my occasional series, Imperfectly Odd. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...
The road that made no sense
It was the UK's only single-carriageway motorway, and twenty years ago it ceased to exist. Why was it so fascinating - and why is it still so fondly remembered today?
open.substack.com
New fridge magnet from @ukroadstransport.bsky.social in place and #TheDoodle has snaffled the two-traffic sign keyring. Just the stickers to use now (and the background information to read). Nice work 😀
I ordered the A6144(M) fridge magnet and sticker set from @ukroadstransport.bsky.social and it arrived today! It marks 20 years since the end of the UK’s only fully single carriageway motorway. And since I have a special connection to that road I thought I’d share some pictures… 🧵
✨🩷 Skye/Skyler 🩵✨@ukroadstransport.bsky.social · 5mo agoTo celebrate 20 years since the downgrade of the Carrington spur you too can now have a piece of history
Worth a read: a political row in Peterborough where it turns out free parking isn’t free.
The Ranty Highwayman@rantyhighwayman.bsky.social · 6mo agoWell here's a twist, Bristow is struggling to reach a deal on the "free" parking with Peterborough council and he thinks the private sector will step in 🤡 www.cambsnews.co.uk/news/local-c...
Three more Ordnance Survey #map sheets have been added to SABRE Maps for #MapMonday, at the Half Inch scale showing the English Midlands in 1934. The Birmingham District Yard Grid sheet shows just how much the West Midlands conurbation has merged together over the last 90 years! buff.ly/50ZNiZO
I dunno why this is so fun, maybe the nostalgia of a lost internet era. Maybe because of something else listed in the About page 🤭🤭🤭
Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@roads.org.uk · 6mo agoThe M4 and M48 have just landed in the Simulator - essential Sunday night clicking for fans of South Wales, obscure motorway trivia and simulated road signs. Jump in at sim.roads.org.uk
The M4 and M48 have just landed in the Simulator - essential Sunday night clicking for fans of South Wales, obscure motorway trivia and simulated road signs. Jump in at sim.roads.org.uk
The brochure for the Official Opening of the Penrith By-Pass Section of the M6 Motorway on 7 November 1968; an isolated section when completed awaiting the Shap section to the south & onwards to Carlisle in the North. @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk @showmeasign.online ↘️ flic.kr/p/2s6B7m8
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.
Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@roads.org.uk · 8mo agoOut today, a new episode of More Jam Tomorrow, a podcast about post-war British history, which happens to be about motorways and happens to include me. Have a listen! morejamtomorrow.com/episode/moto...
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
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
