Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

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...

Great article on the changes last night in Oxford Street - or, to target my readership more precisely, the road that is still part of the A40: open.substack.com/pub/londonce...

Enjoying our Ordnance Survey GB 1:25k First Series releases so far? We hope so, because this #MapMonday brings another 451 individual #map sheets to SABRE Maps, freely available on our website for all to enjoy. buff.ly/kjxNxGd

Why is it that your satnav seems to send you a quicker way than the official diversion? Join me for a deep dive into the devious world of diversion planning. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-long-w...

Just published: when a road is closed, why does the diversion take you so far out of your way? We find out why this week's overnight closures of the A50 are sending drivers on a tour of Staffordshire. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/the-long-w...

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-...

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...

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.

@roads.org.uk

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...

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_...

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?...

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...

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 😀

@showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @rantyhighwayman.bsky.social im so proud of this been working on it for months

Worth a read: a political row in Peterborough where it turns out free parking isn’t free.

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

Hedge update: it's been trimmed

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 🤭🤭🤭

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.

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

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...

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)