Related Research Articles
The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The 117-mile (188-kilometre) motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the longest ring road in Europe upon opening. The Dartford Crossing completes the orbital route but is not classed as motorway; it is classed as a trunk road and designated as the A282. In some cases, including notable legal contexts such as the Communications Act 2003, the M25 is used as a de facto alternative boundary for Greater London.
The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass, which later became part of the M6.
The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely complete by 1980, though a non-motorway section around Briton Ferry bridge remained until 1993. On the opening of the Second Severn Crossing in 1996, the M4 was rerouted over it.
The A1 is the longest numbered road in the UK, at 397 miles (639 km). It connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It passes through or near North London, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, Baldock, Letchworth Garden City, Biggleswade, St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Doncaster, York, Pontefract, Wetherby, Ripon, Darlington, Durham, Sunderland, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Road pricing are direct charges levied for the use of roads, including road tolls, distance or time-based fees, congestion charges and charges designed to discourage the use of certain classes of vehicle, fuel sources or more polluting vehicles. These charges may be used primarily for revenue generation, usually for road infrastructure financing, or as a transportation demand management tool to reduce peak hour travel and the associated traffic congestion or other social and environmental negative externalities associated with road travel such as air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, visual intrusion, noise pollution and road traffic collisions.
The M40 motorway links London, Oxford and Birmingham in England, a distance of approximately 89 miles (143 km).
The A303 is a trunk road in southern England, running between Basingstoke in Hampshire and Honiton in Devon via Stonehenge. Connecting the M3 and the A30, it is part of one of the main routes from London to Devon and Cornwall. It is a primary A road throughout its length, passing through five counties.
The M2 is a motorway in Kent, England. It is 26 miles (42 km) long and acts as a bypass of the section of the A2 road to run past the Medway Towns, Sittingbourne, Faversham, and to provide an alternative route to the Port of Dover, supplementing the M20. It feeds into the A2, forming a 62 mile long trunk road from London to (almost) Dover.
The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Bromwich and west of Birmingham through Sandwell Valley. It continues past Bromsgrove, Droitwich Spa, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, Clevedon, Weston-super-Mare, Bridgwater, Taunton, terminating at junction 31 for Exeter. Congestion on the section south of the M4 is common during the summer holidays, on Friday afternoons and bank holidays.
The M20 is a motorway in Kent, England. It follows on from the A20 at Swanley, meeting the M25, and continuing on to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel and the ports at Dover. It is 50.6 miles (81.4 km) long. Although not signposted in England, this road is part of the European route E15. It is also used as a holding area for goods traffic when traffic across the English Channel is disrupted, such as Operation Stack and Operation Brock.
The A14 is a major trunk road in England, running 127 miles (204 km) from Catthorpe Interchange, a major intersection at the southern end of the M6 and junction 19 of the M1 in Leicestershire to the Port of Felixstowe, Suffolk. The road forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E24 and E30. It is the busiest shipping lane in East Anglia carrying anything from cars to large amounts of cargo between the UK and Mainland Europe.
The A12 is a major road in southern England. It runs north-east/south-west between London and the coastal town of Lowestoft in the north-eastern corner of Suffolk, following a similar route to the Great Eastern Main Line until Ipswich. A section of the road between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth became part of the A47 in 2017. Between the junctions with the M25 and the A14, the A12 forms part of the unsigned Euroroute E30. Unlike most A roads, this section of the A12, together with the A14 and the A55, has junction numbers as if it were a motorway.
The North Circular Road is a 25.7-mile-long (41.4 km) ring road around Central London in England. It runs from Chiswick in the west to Woolwich in the east via suburban North London, connecting various suburbs and other trunk roads in the region. Together with its counterpart, the A205 South Circular Road, it forms a ring road around central London. This ring road does not make a complete circuit of the city, being C-shaped rather than a complete loop as the crossing of the River Thames in the east is made on the Woolwich Ferry.
The A13 is a major road in England linking Central London with east London and south Essex. Its route is similar to that of the London, Tilbury and Southend line via Rainham, Grays, Tilbury & Stanford-Le-Hope, and runs the entire length of the northern Thames Gateway area, terminating on the Thames Estuary at Shoeburyness. It is a trunk road between London and the Tilbury junction, a primary route between there and Sadlers Hall Farm near South Benfleet, and a non-primary route between there and Shoeburyness.
The A494 is a trunk road in Wales and England. The route, which is officially known as the Dolgellau to South of Birkenhead Trunk Road, runs between the terminus of the M56 motorway between Mollington and Capenhurst and the A470 at Dolgellau, Gwynedd. Its northern sections remain among the busiest roads in Wales.
The United Kingdom has a network of roads, of varied quality and capacity, totalling about 262,300 miles (422,100 km). Road distances are shown in miles or yards and UK speed limits are indicated in miles per hour (mph) or by the use of the national speed limit (NSL) symbol. Some vehicle categories have various lower maximum limits enforced by speed limiters. A unified numbering system is in place for Great Britain, whilst in Northern Ireland, there is no available explanation for the allocation of road numbers.
The London Ringways were a series of four ring roads planned in the 1960s to circle London at various distances from the city centre. They were part of a comprehensive scheme developed by the Greater London Council (GLC) to alleviate traffic congestion on the city's road system by providing high speed motorway-standard roads within the capital, linking a series of radial roads taking traffic into and out of the city.
The M54 is a 23-mile (37 km) east-west motorway in the counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire, England. It is also referred to as the Telford motorway, after the road's primary westbound destination, the town of Telford. It cost £65 million to construct, and is two-lane dual carriageway for the majority of its length, with sections of three-lane.
Traffic in Towns was an influential report and popular book on urban and transport planning policy published 25 November 1963 for the UK Ministry of Transport by a team headed by the architect, civil engineer and planner Colin Buchanan. The report warned of the potential damage caused by the motor car, while offering ways to mitigate it. It gave planners a set of policy blueprints to deal with its effects on the urban environment, including traffic containment and segregation, which could be balanced against urban redevelopment, new corridor and distribution roads and precincts.
Road protests in the United Kingdom usually occur as a reaction to a stated intention by the empowered authorities to build a new road, or to modify an existing road. Some of the reasons for opposition to opening new roads include: a desire to reduce air pollution and thus not wishing to incentivise increased or sustained car usage, and/or a desire to reduce or maintain low noise pollution by not having or increasing the use of motor vehicles in the area of the planned/proposed road. Protests may also be made by those wishing to see new roads built or improvements made to existing roads. Motivations for protests may be altruistic or selfish. In some cases, protests have also acted as a training ground for individuals and groups who continue to be active in campaigning and advocacy.
References
- 1 2 "History and context". Towards a Sustainable Transport System: Growth in a Low Carbon World. London: Department for Transport. October 2007. ISBN 978-0-10-172262-9 . Retrieved 18 November 2007.
- ↑ Sadler, Richard (13 December 2006). "Roads to ruin". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ↑ Lean, Geoffrey (21 January 1996). "Tories ditch the 'car economy'". The Independent. London. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ↑ Kingsnorth, Paul (30 June 2003). "Do we have to set England alight again?". New Statesman. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- ↑ Webster, Ben (11 September 2006). "Broken promises leave dozens of towns in queue for a bypass". The Times. London: News International. Retrieved 18 November 2007.
- ↑ "Reducing emissions from road transport: Road to Zero Strategy". GOV.UK.