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 🧵

The M4 gets further in to London than any other motorway. It's a good road, except for the all-day jams where three lanes narrow to two. Why does it do that? Today I've published the first of two posts that try to find the answer. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...

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...

MORE JAM TOMORROW MI5 is out *tomorrow*! In the meantime why not listen to @jasonhazeley.bsky.social and @roads.org.uk talk about why we’ll probably never build another motorway? morejamtomorrow.com/episode/moto...

Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1959 captured by the #Manchester Corporation photographer. A lot of folk waiting for a bus, a branch of Mac Fisheries & a rather splendid pre-Worboys traffic sign. @showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk (Pic. Manchester Archives)

If you weren't able to attend our recent Zoom session showing people how to georeference #maps using our Online Calibrator, then we've got it recorded and now available on our YouTube channel. Don't forget to look there for other videos! www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhO6...

Out 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...

An absolute joy to talk motorways with @rostaylor.bsky.social - the podcast episode is below, have a listen!

Ok, let’s do this🙄 We’ll start with an explainer covering: 🕒What is a 15-minute city 🏫What on Earth is going on with Oxford 👽Where the conspiracy theories have come from And then we’ll look at the Telegraph article 🧵 1/25

Traffic signs galore at Trafford park, Manchester, in 1964. The now M60 signed in its original incarnation of the M62 Eccles - Stretford Bypass. I bet that bench on the lest gave scenic views. @showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk (Image courtesy Manchester Libraries)

@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.

As a reminder, this is happening at 7.30pm this evening for anyone who is interested in the Maps section of our Society.

I can't find it because Google's a mess, but somebody once wrote that our website is "old fashioned", in a way "the web needs more of" As more and more websites feel broken, stick two fingers up at AI summaries, video, data tracking and trolling by reading a massive page about a service station

A chance purchase & a rather fine "find". An original 1968 architectural perspective by Frank Weemys, no less, of the new Holford design for London Bridge, reconstructed in 1967/73. Only ever seen this in b/w before. #architecture @roads.org.uk @c20society.bsky.social flic.kr/p/2rRsQs2

Well there's a lovely thing, my blog hit 1.5m visits this week. Hoping to write a bit more this year. therantyhighwayman.blogspot.com

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

Glad to be confounding your expectations, one by one.

Today I'm launching a silly roads-related side project - the Simulator, that will let you take journeys around the UK's major roads from the comfort of your chair. And to explain why I have invested so much effort in something so pointless, I wrote this. open.substack.com/pub/roadsorg...

A spendid architects sketch of the M6 at the Lune Gorge by Frank Weemys in 1967 used, with the MOT's consent, on the front cover of the Guide to Appleby & N. Westmorland Councils. The heavily engineered section opened in 1970. @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk @showmeasign.online flic.kr/p/2rQHmUG

Even artist’s impressions of GLC road projects were drawn with the GLC’s custom designed street lights, like this view of the unbuilt West Cross Route!

Why nobody knows what colour this road sign is

The London County Council’s Strand Underpass, opened in 1964 and created through the conversion of part of the former Kingsway tram tunnel. The work, undertaken by John Mowlem & Co., cost just over £1 million. Here is an LCC brochure marking its completion.

The opening ceremony brochure for Westway and the West Cross Route from July 1970. “Guests will be invited to […] proceed with a police escort to Westway where the Minister will be invited by the Leader of the Council to cut a ribbon on the westbound carriageway and to declare the new roadways open”

How do you fix the M4 into London? The Ministry of Transport thought you couldn't. But a team of engineers had other ideas, and wanted to extend it as a right-hand-drive elevated road across London to Barking. ("Barking" was the operative word in their plan.) www.roads.org.uk/ringways/wes...

Oh I say! @showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk A fine, early M1 sign c.1964 flic.kr/p/2n7DeXz

The UK pioneered changeable road signs of all types - we gave the world the matrix signal, but we also had a go at all sorts of other novel ideas. Take a tour of some of the wildest ideas of the 60s, part of our Mixed Signals long read. www.roads.org.uk/articles/mix...

For this week's #MapMonday, you can discover the OS London Two Inch Ministry of Transport maps from 1922, and see just where the A1, A2, A3 etc all meet at "point zero" in London. Or not... buff.ly/BAr8iFr

Fancy a stroll on a motorway? Before the M621 opened to connect Leeds with the motorway network you could do just that. #leeds www.roads.org.uk/blog/walk-m621

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...

One of London's unbuilt urban motorways was so unpopular that government officials decided to keep its plans a secret and pretend that they had never planned it at all. Their plan to drive a motorway through Barnes was the worst kept secret in West London. #barnes www.roads.org.uk/ringways/rin...

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-...

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-...

Just published: a drive through of the Studland Motor Road, a little road in Dorset that's the legal ancestor of the motorway network. Join us for a drive through the dunes! #dorset www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPr...

The government is still figuring out how to pay for new infrastructure, but back in January one thing was already becoming clear - the five year cycles of Road Investment Periods weren't delivering any of their promises. www.roads.org.uk/blog/all-cha...

The UK's highest numbered motorway is too narrow to have hard shoulders, too short to fit in a lay-by and has a junction named for a toll plaza that doesn't exist. The oddball M898 is full of surprises. #glasgow www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m898

In the 1950s the man in charge of Oxfordshire's roads didn't like the UK's road signs, so he invented his own. The Ministry hated them - first because they weren't allowed, and second because they were better than the real thing. www.roads.org.uk/articles/oxf...

You can drive London's North Circular today, but it would have been a different road if sixties planners had their way. Take a look at the plans that would have fitted it in to a city-wide network of motorways. #northcircular www.roads.org.uk/ringways/rin...

Work is nearly complete at M25 J10 Wisley Interchange after nearly four years of upgrade works. Will it be worth it? www.roads.org.uk/blog/we-need...

@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.

Cover of the day: from 1967 and the start of the Plummer era - the GLC’s London’s Roads, a programme for action. The motorway box was at the centre of policy (although, sometimes forgotten, so too were traffic restrictions and public transport), but the Ringways were not yet fully formed as an idea.

Bedfordshire's notorious Black Cat roundabout is being rebuilt as a three-level junction, which is just as well - we've got 20 years of visitor comments explaining exactly what's wrong with this eternally Bad Junction. www.roads.org.uk/badjunctions...

And you can see the route of what we lovingly call the PNLR right here on SABRE Maps: www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p...

Some of London's urban motorways were built. Some were planned but spades never hit the ground. And some were so vague, so ethereal, that we still don't even know what they were called. Take a journey with us on a road that's little more than a ghost. www.roads.org.uk/ringways/nor...

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

Transport is full of terminology. Do you know your Pegasus from your Pelican? Could you point out a refuge or a repeater if you saw one in the wild? Don't worry, if you're lost in jargon our dictionary can help. www.roads.org.uk/dictionary

Concrete roads make people cross. They're noisy and uncomfortable. But they don't have to be like that - a revolutionary treatment can rehabilitate them. One problem: you need a lot of diamonds. www.roads.org.uk/blog/diamond...

What nobody ever tells you about the road to Blackpool is that it's part of the UK's first motorway. Check out our guide to the unexpectedly historic M55. #blackpool www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m55

A suitable sign for the onset of winter. A 'pre-Worboys' direction sign at Chilton Moor, Co. Durham, as seen in Jan 1963, a bitter winter, by Ed Fulton on Flickr. Chilly & atmospheric for a child of the '60s! @showmeasign.online @roads.org.uk @sabre-roads.org.uk flic.kr/p/2mJWwxV

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...