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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 24/09/2026

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-...

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 06/09/2026

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...

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 30/08/2026

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.)

Photograph of a blue road sign showing figures of an adult holding hands with a young girl. The symbol is drawn with a strangely wavy and indistinct outline.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 09/08/2026

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...

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 11/07/2026

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.

Graphic of a road sign, generated by the Roads.org.uk Simulator. It shows a route confirmation sign on the M5, with destinations "The SOUTH WEST, Bridgwater, Taunton, Exeter".

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 07/06/2026

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...

Close up of a blue road sign bearing the text "A6144(M)". Between the "A6144" and the "(M)" is a tiny fridge magnet that is a facsimile of the sign it's attached to

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 28/05/2026

My next plan was to stick the magnet to the sign, but unfortunately the sign is aluminium so magnets don’t stick to it. I had to use sellotape to finally bring the two together. But the effect was worth it!

The A6144(M) sign fridge magnet, stuck to the real sign, positioned in between the much larger numbers “A6144” and “(M)”.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 28/05/2026

When the A6144(M) lost motorway status in 2006, I went and salvaged some of the old signs (with permission!), so I am delighted to be able to demonstrate the accuracy of the stickers and fridge magnet in this set by comparing with the real thing 🔍

A sticker showing a “start of motorway regulations” sign with the number “A6144(M)” in the foreground, being held up in front of the real sign which is out of focus in the background. The two are very closely matched in shape and form.

The same sticker and sign held up against each other, but now with the sticker in the foreground out of focus and the sign behind it in focus.

A fridge magnet in the form of a “start of restrictions” sign for the A6144(M), with a red bar through the motorway symbol crossing it out, held up in front of the real sign, so that both appear to be the same size.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 28/05/2026

First of all… the set is really cool and I would absolutely recommend it - the key ring will be going on to my house keys shortly 🙌🏻

Photograph of a sticker, key ring and magnet set celebrating the A6144(M), all wrapped in a cellophane bag. Visible are an information sheet, fridge magnet in the form of a motorway regulations sign with the motorway symbol crossed out, and a key ring in the shape of a two-way traffic warning sign.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 12/04/2026

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

Screenshot of a mock-up road sign from the Simulator, showing a motorway gantry sign with Welsh translations for each place name. "Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, A470" are on the left and "Cardiff (W), Bridgend M4" are on the right.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 27/03/2026

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

Screenshot of a graphic from the Simulator, showing a Smart Motorway gantry sign at junction 6 of the M6, Spaghetti Junction.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 23/03/2026

It didn’t work. The bricks matched OK, but the mortar did not. Sixty years on you can still see where the wall used to taper down to the ground when it formed a ramp. 4/5

Photograph of a view along the wall of the Chiswick Flyover showing the taper down where the ramp used to be, highlighted by different types of mortar. Photo from Google Streetview.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 22/03/2026

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...

Photograph of a road viaduct under construction, with beams being lifted into place to form the deck. An array of sliproads cross up and down between the top and bottom decks.

Black and white photograph of the Chiswick Flyover and Great West Road with work in progress to build foundations for the M4's viaduct.

Black and white photograph looking up at the Brentford Viaduct under construction. An apparatus called the "octopus" - a sort of large crane - stands on top of the incomplete structure and is winching huge concrete beams up from a lorry on the road below.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 20/03/2026

Just published, the second part of my deep dive into a surprisingly experimental road project - the M4 in West London, with its lane drop and associated permanent traffic jam. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...

Graphic showing a red-coloured map of the M4 passing through West London, overlaid with the text "The forever bottleneck, part 2: The M4 in West London may have been bold and innovative, but if you've never built a motorway before you're bound to make some mistakes."

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 05/03/2026

Why does the M4 do that? There is a reason, and it involves engineers who had never designed a motorway before, a government Ministry that wasn't asking the right questions, and a project that was so full of experiments that one of its bold new ideas was bound to backfire. 3/4

Black and white photograph showing a view along the Great West Road from above, with an unfinished motorway being built above the road and between industrial and suburban buildings.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 05/03/2026

Do you remember the controversy around the M4 Bus Lane? It lived a short and eventful existence, stirring up more frustration than almost anything else on the roads. 1/4 🧵

Photograph of a motorway, seen from a bridge, with three lanes of traffic heading away from the camera. Two are open to general traffic but the right-hand lane is coloured red and marked as a bus lane. A blue and yellow "Megabus" is travelling in the bus lane.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 04/03/2026

Just published: the M4 into London was one of the UK's most innovative road projects when it opened. So why does it also contain a fatal flaw? In the first of two parts we take a deep dive into the highly experimental motorway through Brentford. #london #m4 open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 19/01/2026

@doublearrow64.bsky.social Have you seen the temporary signs in RA2 at Waterloo? Escalators out of service so an alternative route is signposted in what looks like the new wayfinding style - but all on LU property! One is on an existing LU sign so uses New Johnston.

Sign mounted on a tiled pillar reading “alternative route to Jubilee line & Waterloo Road” with an Underground roundel

Sign mounted on a wall reading “alternative route for Waterloo Station National Rail services”. It is within a tube station but is written in Rail Alphabet 2 and uses the new National Rail wayfinding system

Overhead sign for “Waterloo & City line” to a standard London Underground design, with a temporary panel added on the right pointing to an alternative route to Waterloo Station. The whole sign is typeset in New Johnston but the temporary panel uses the layout and colours of the new National Rail wayfinding system

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 08/01/2026

Just launched, something brilliantly pointless and surprisingly addictive: the Simulator will let you take virtual journeys around the UK's road network with realistic road signs and without the traffic. All you need is your web browser. Why not take a spin? sim.roads.org.uk

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 21/12/2025

Last week I added a new video to my YouTube channel featuring the strange and brilliant Studland Motor Road. There's a whole article about it on the website too, complete with a photo gallery to provide some summery seaside sunshine to your dark December day. www.roads.org.uk/articles/stu...

Photograph of a road approaching a drive-on ferry in bright sunshine. In the foreground is a warning sign showing a car driving off a quayside with the text "ferry slipway 150 yds"

Photograph of the Sandbanks ferry setting off across the water, with several cars and a double decker bus on board

Photograph of an old yellowed road sign that reads "Poole, Bournemouth via toll ferry"

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 19/12/2025

Yesterday we took the deepest dive into the untold history of an unremarked piece of street furniture, and how detail is everything if you want to forge a city's identity. roadsorguk.substack.com/p/london-in-...

Silhouette of a street light against a blue sky, over which is written "London, in a different light: It was specially designed never to be noticed. And now it's disappearing, nobody has noticed its absence. It's London's own bespoke street light."

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 18/12/2025

Just published - we're slowly losing something we didn't know we had: a street light designed just for London. I've taken a deep (and deeply geeky) dive into the history of an everyday object that was designed not to be noticed. #london roadsorguk.substack.com/p/london-in-...

Silhouette of a modern style street light against a deep blue sky

Photograph of Marylebone Road with Euston Tower in the distance, seen from the central reservation of the road. A street light stands in the foreground

Engineering drawing showing precise dimensions for a direction sign assembly and a lighting column

View along the A316 Country Way, with the road rising on to a flyover in the distance. A street light arches over the view and a line of similar lights marches into the distance

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 10/12/2025

I had the chance to inspect a couple for clues this morning. Marylebone Rd posts are covered in stippled anti-poster paint, obscuring everything, but on the A4 there are some with this much-painted-over logo. I don’t recognise it though!

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 09/12/2025

@mikeyashworth.bsky.social Do you happen to know which company made columns like these? i.e. tubular posts with the bracket coming vertically out of the top of the post and then curving horizontally. They were the GLC standard type (and widely used elsewhere), I think first made in the 60s.

Picture from Google Streetview of a line of double-bracketed streetlights in the middle of a dual carriageway

Picture from Google Streetview of streetlights at the side of a sliproad, of the type described in the post

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 04/12/2025

What if the local council had no responsibility for the street outside your house and instead it was yours to fix? Welcome to life on an unadopted street - and there's more of them out there than you think. We looked into life on the UK's suburban dirt tracks. www.roads.org.uk/blog/adoption

View along a street with parked cars in the distance. The road surface is unmade, largely packed earth and gravel, and is very uneven with several potholes and tyre tracks

Homemade sign attached to an ivy-covered tree that reads "Please Drive VERY Slowly"

View along an unsurfaced suburban street, with a 1930s cast iron lamp post alongside a freshly installed light fitting from the 1980s

View of an unmade road surface with large chunks of concrete and tarmac sticking haphazardly out of the surface

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 30/11/2025

What occupies half the M20 and might be related to badgers? Operation Brock, the semi-permanent system to use a motorway as a lorry park. Back when it first appeared we went to take a look. #kent www.roads.org.uk/blog/operati...

View along a motorway, with all traffic travelling in contraflow on the right, while the carriageway on the left has lines of cones and a single lorry in the distance

View of a motorway carriageway from overhead, showing the installation of a semi-permenent barrier bolted into the road surface to divide traffic in opposite directions and the repainting of lines

View of a motorway with a contraflow on the right and two lanes on the left, marked out by cones, to hold queueing lorries

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 27/11/2025

Westminster's council has spent several years trialling "3D" zebra crossings, in the hope the optical illusion will cause drivers to slow down. The artwork is nice but would you be fooled? We paid a visit to the first one when it had just opened. www.roads.org.uk/blog/3d-zebra

A view along a suburban road in London, with a zebra crossing in the foreground. The stripes of the crossing have extra grey paint around them to form an optical illusion that looks like the stripes are raised blocks.

A view across the 3D zebra crossing showing the detail of the paintwork and the different colours used to make up the illusion

A view of the crossing at a slight angle which means the illusion doesn't work, instead the crossing appears as a confused array of grey shapes on the road surface

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 23/11/2025

Conwy is home to an impressive array of bridges and tunnels, many of them on (or formerly on) the A55. The Conwy Tunnel itself isn't the most glamorous but it's probably the most used. An unusual arch commemorates its opening and frames a view of the town. #conwy

Portal of a tunnel carrying a dual carriageway. The tunnel is square in shape since it is a submerged tube and not bored in the conventional way

A sign listing restrictions on traffic that can use the tunnel in both English and Welsh, starting with the large words DIM and NO.

Plaque marking the opening of the tunnel, reading "to commemorate the opening of the Conwy Tunnel by Her Majesty the Queen 25th October 1991"

Rectangular concrete archway, bearing a brass commemorative plaque, which frames a view of Conwy's castle and town walls seen across the river

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 16/11/2025

Skelmersdale's link to the motorway network has a strange history, and the book that celebrated its opening reveals some little-known secrets about unrealised plans for the New Town. Take a look in our museum of Opening Booklets. #skelmersdale www.roads.org.uk/opening-book...

Black and white aerial photograph of the M6/M58 interchange under construction, with looped sliproads near the camera and two huge roundabouts

Plan of new roads serving Skelmersdale New Town, including the M6, a "regional road" linking it to the motorway, and several main roads in the town itself

Black and white aerial photograph of the western part of Skelmersdale, with a pair of huge roundabouts under construction and labels for some of the roads and housing estates

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 13/11/2025

Have you heard? Our epic Ringways Map was finally published last week, laying out London's unbuilt urban motorways in full detail for the first time ever. Our blog post has all the details: www.roads.org.uk/blog/ringway...

A map of Clapham Junction with two huge triangular motorway interchanges overlaid on it, connected by a six carriageway road, and with other motorways radiating out in all directions. Images in this post contain OS data © Crown copyright and database right (2017).

A map of Chiswick, with the Chiswick Roundabout at the centre, over which a sprawling motorway interchange has been drawn

A map of Denham, just outside Uxbridge, over which a huge motorway interchange has been drawn, showing a four-level stack and braided sliproads connecting to other adjacent interchanges

A map of Harlow, over which a much bigger and more extensive road network has been drawn

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 09/11/2025

We've spent a lot of time this week talking about unbuilt motorways in London, but Glasgow has plenty of those too - and we've got a whole page exploring the amazing artist's renderings of the futuristic world planners hoped to create. #glasgow www.roads.org.uk/articles/gla...

Colour painting of a city seen from the air, with boxy modernistic buildings and lots of green space and a large motorway interchange at the centre

Black and white sketch drawing of a four-lane road passing underneath two curving flyovers; a pair of blocky brutalist tower blocks are on the left

Black and white sketch drawing of a mother pushing a pram, with a child next to her holding a doll. They are walking along a path underneath a motorway flyover towards two brutalist tower blocks

Black and white sketch drawing of two large motorway viaducts, beneath which is a pedestrian subway sunken into the ground. In it several groups of people are gathered, seemingly in casual conversation

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 09/11/2025

Blimey, it’s not normally this lively in my weird little niche. Am I going viral? Is this blowing up? Is it time to hire an agent?

A BlueSky notifications button with “30+” notifications lit up

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 06/11/2025

Unstable, unsafe and scheduled for demolition: catch Gateshead’s iconic, never-finished double-deck flyover while you still can. Our photo gallery will show you the sights. #gateshead www.roads.org.uk/photo/gatesh...

A concrete flyover structure that appears to stop in mid-air, with a road beneath and sliproads connecting the flyover to the ground. A brutalist concrete tower block is in the background

A pedestrian subway ramp spirals down into the ground between concrete walls, in the shadow of an enormous elevated road that blocks out the sky

A flyover sliproad comes down to ground level on the right, with queueing cars, while on the left another road emerges from beneath the flyover

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 03/11/2025

Zoom in all the way to see everything, with the most detailed labelling. The lines are approximately to scale, so if a black line obscures something it would have been demolished... but then a lot of stuff all around the black lines would have been demolished. /6

Close-up map of Blackheath, with a thick black line through the town centre labelled "Ringway 1 South Cross Route" and a dashed grey line branching off it labelled "Buchanan's bored tunnel alternative line"

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 03/11/2025

Zoom in and you get more detail. The black lines are the Primary Road Network - London's planned but largely unbuilt motorway network. The red lines are the Secondary Road Network, which would have fed traffic to the motorways, and mostly were London's existing main roads. /5

Map of a section of London onto which many lines have been overlaid - thick black lines labelled "Ringway 1" and "A20(M)", and thinner red lines covering existing main roads. Junctions like Kidbrooke Interchange and St John's Interchange are labelled.

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 03/11/2025

The map we published today is the first one, *ever*, to show you everything they planned. Nobody in history has seen the whole, complete 1960s vision for London until today. At the outer zoom levels, you get an outline plan - colour coded to match the pages of our Ringways mini-site. /4

Map of London at a distant zoom level, over which have been laid a network of major roads in various colours

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 03/11/2025

But the planners never saw the whole thing. It wasn't one plan, it was a whole city of individual plans, each one drawn up separately by different government bodies, departments, consultancies, engineers. They had a broad outline but nobody ever drew a map of the system they were creating. /3

Outline plan of the Ringways, essentially a blank sheet of A4 paper with black lines drawn and labelled for the planned major road network and no further context

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 03/11/2025

London's planners wanted to turn the capital into a motorway city, drawing four concentric ring motorways around the centre and an array of radial routes travelling in and out. It would have changed London forever. /2

Rough charcoal sketch artist's impression of an urban motorway with cars rushing into the distance and tall concrete tower blocks on either side

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 02/11/2025

Devon's road signs use all sorts of colours and boxes that you won't see anywhere else in the UK. It's all part of a county-wide system to tell you how wide each road is and save you getting stuck between two hedges. Our guide explains it all. #devon www.roads.org.uk/blog/devon-h...

A fingerpost sign, on which one panel has no border and an arrow in white outlined in black, and another has a list of destinations among which only "Chagford" has been given a blue border

Direction sign showing a junction with Lyme Regis ahead and Exeter Airport to the left, and the destination Aylesbeare inside a brown box.

A fingerpost sign for Postbridge which has a brown border and a brown arrow

A direction sign with a black border and arrows, on which the destinations Sticklepath and South Tawton, and a brown panel indicating a caravan site, have all been placed inside a blue box

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 01/11/2025

Arriving this week, after an eight year wait... the Ringways Map. Our Ringways pages will finally be joined by a high resolution map showing the entire city with its urban motorway network. Stand by for fireworks! In the meantime you can revisit our Ringways pages here: www.roads.org.uk/ringways

Extract from a map showing an unbuilt urban motorway through the South East London suburb of Mottingham. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database rights (2017) used under the terms of the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 26/10/2025

The A1(M) Darlington Bypass opened in 1965, starting a project to connect the North East by motorway that was only finished in 2018. Take a look at this pioneering motorway project in the official book that marked its opening. #darlington www.roads.org.uk/opening-book...

Black and white photograph of a deep rock cutting with a new unsurfaced motorway passing through it. A piece of earthmoving equipment and a small vintage car are visible

Plan of the A1(M) Darlington Bypass, showing the town, the old A1 passing through and the new motorway passing to the west, picked out in bright pink

Extract from a book with a black and white picture of all sorts of 1960s earthmoving equipment arrayed on a muddy road bed

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 23/10/2025

Junction design doesn't have to just be functional - we think it can be beautiful too. Explore the graceful geometry of loops, links and bridges in our Interchanges section. www.roads.org.uk/interchanges

3D drawing of a four level stack interchange against a green background

Diagram of traffic flows through a complex whirlpool interchange with different flows shown by different coloured arrows

3D drawing of a three level stacked roundabout interchange

Diagram of traffic flows at a cloverleaf interchange, with four distinctive loops in the design

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 19/10/2025

Views of the spectacular M90 Queensferry Crossing (plus a cameo from the Forth Road Bridge), seen from on and off the bridge. It opened eight years ago with great fanfare and a public walkabout event. Were you there? Let us know your memories in the comments 👇 www.roads.org.uk/photo/forth-...

View of a cable-stayed bridge as seen from the water below

Bridge deck with dozens of huge white-painted cables coming down diagonally to meet it

View from the water of the Forth Road Bridge, a grey suspension bridge, in the foreground, with the Queensferry Crossing, a cable stayed bridge, seen in the distance through the first

View from below, looking up at the Queensferry Crossing, showing a motorway sign above the road deck that looks tiny against the huge bridge deck and tower

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 16/10/2025

You can catch a train to France if you want, but back in the 80s there were hopes you'd be able to drive there too. Meet EuroRoute, the unbelievable plan for a road across the Channel via bridges, a tunnel and two artificial islands. www.roads.org.uk/articles/eur...

Artist's rendering of a long cable stayed bridge stretching away into the distance over a choppy sea with a yellow sailing boat in the foreground and a cargo ship away on the horizon

Artist's rendering of an artificial island, shown as a cut-away so the interior is visible. A cable stayed bridge carries a road onto the island which spirals down underground, while buildings and a marina are visible around the edges

Diagram showing a small part of the Kent coast with Dover visible; projecting out across the Channel are two lines, one representing a rail tunnel and the other a long road bridge to an island and a tunnel on from there

Sketch of an artificial island, with a cable stayed bridge leading to it, which has a large marina surrounded by hotels and casinos

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 12/10/2025

We've got a soft spot for the tiny M49. It's one of the oddest motorways - for years it had no junctions, and now it has one junction which leads nowhere at all. What's the story behind the ghost interchange at Avonmouth? #m49 #bristol www.roads.org.uk/blog/ghost-j... www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m49

A blue sign reading "SOUTH WALES, London, M49" points down an empty sliproad towards a motorway

A white van passes from left to right under a new-looking bridge with concrete supports and green painted metal beams

A sign reading "M49, M4, M5" points towards a clearly unfinished road that ends in a pile of rubble and temporary barriers just a few metres away

A blue sign reading "M49" is seen against a grey sky at the top of an almost vertical grassy embankment

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 09/10/2025

Back in the 1930s it was easier to go around things than shift too much earth. That's why the A24 takes such a snaking course along the Mole Valley near Mickleham, making one of the UK's most hair-raising dual carriageways. #surrey www.roads.org.uk/photo/mickle...

Photograph of a car travelling around a sharp left-hand bend with several yellow-bordered chevron signs marking the turn

Photograph of a sharp corner on a dual carriageway, with one lane painted out with white stripes and the other carriageway visible in the distance through the trees

A sharp corner on a dual carriageway, with an electronic warning sign in the foreground lit up to show a 50mph speed limit and a speed camera symbol

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 05/10/2025

In 1971 the M602 Eccles Bypass was pushed through the suburbs of Greater Manchester, and its builders were delighted with their work. To celebrate they published a book full of praise and fascinating archive pictures of an urban motorway under construction. #m602 www.roads.org.uk/opening-book...

Black and white aerial photograph of a large motorway interchange nearing completion. One arm travels away into the distance where it almost immediately enters the suburbs, passing between houses and factories

Black and white photograph of a motorway nearing completion. It has tarmac carriageways and lighting but no road markings yet. The motorway curves away into the distance through an urban area

Aerial photograph of a motorway under construction in an urban area. Buildings have been cleared to leave a swathe of bare land which is crossed by several new, white concrete bridges

Map showing the location of the M602 Eccles Bypass in Greater Manchester, with other motorways nearby marked as under construction

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 02/10/2025

All roundabouts are the same: you give way to the right when you join. But it wasn't always so. In February 1960 Middlesbrough was the first place to try a new priority to the right rule. The queues vanished immediately, and the new rule stuck. #middlesbrough www.roads.org.uk/articles/rou...

Archive photograph from the early 1960s of a small urban roundabout that has locked up, with a continuous line of cars around the junction and none of the traffic moving

Archive photograph from the early 1960s of the approach to a roundabout. A hand-painted sign reads GIVE WAY TO TRAFFIC FROM YOUR RIGHT.

Traffic flow diagram for a roundabout, using arrows in four different colours to show the volume of traffic approaching on each arm and travelling to each of the others in the morning rush hour

Archive photograph of the approach to the Newport Bridge in Middlesbrough, with traffic departing the roundabout in the foreground and travelling up the ramp towards a bridge with tall metal towers

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 25/09/2025

These amazing pictures show the M40 under construction near High Wycombe - and one motorist who didn't look out for the signs when passing through the roadworks. They were sent to us a few years ago by Robert Plato. For more old photos, see our picture gallery: www.roads.org.uk/photo/old-mo...

A car travels on an unfinished motorway. In the distance there are construction workers and plant on the incomplete carriageway of a bridge

A bridge is under construction, with lines of concrete piers and some unfinished steel beams joining them

A car that has crashed into a set of heavy wooden barriers painted with chevrons. The barriers are strewn across the road and the car is badly dented

An almost complete motorway curves into the distance, crossing a flyover

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Roads.org.uk 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @roads.org.uk · 21/09/2025

It was one of the most hated things ever to appear on the UK's roads. Do you remember the notorious M4 Bus Lane? #m4 #london

A view of a motorway from an overpass. A bus travels down a red-painted bus lane on the right hand side of a three-lane motorway

A view of a motorway at dusk in red-pink light, with traffic using two general lanes and a third red-painted bus lane empty

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