…Or the Autobahn equivalent of that word.
Inspired by a similar thread on HS2 from a few months ago, I’m wondering what might have happened in an alternative scenario where Britain’s motorway network was planned as a series of incremental bypasses paralleling the existing trunk road network, rather than full blown new-builds. For example, instead of the M1, let’s say we had a fully dualled A5/A45 between London and Birmingham with the A6 also dualled from London all the way to the East Midlands.
This is essentially how the Republic of Ireland built their motorway network, by stringing together bypasses of existing trunk routes and allowing them to retain the same number (N1>M1 etc). If more radial routes out of London were upgraded in this way, we’d have better contingency in the event of disruption and closures. For example having two London - East Midlands motorways (one via the A5/A46 corridor and the other paralleling the A6), but would the cost of an overall bigger motorway network have been worth it?
Inspired by a similar thread on HS2 from a few months ago, I’m wondering what might have happened in an alternative scenario where Britain’s motorway network was planned as a series of incremental bypasses paralleling the existing trunk road network, rather than full blown new-builds. For example, instead of the M1, let’s say we had a fully dualled A5/A45 between London and Birmingham with the A6 also dualled from London all the way to the East Midlands.
This is essentially how the Republic of Ireland built their motorway network, by stringing together bypasses of existing trunk routes and allowing them to retain the same number (N1>M1 etc). If more radial routes out of London were upgraded in this way, we’d have better contingency in the event of disruption and closures. For example having two London - East Midlands motorways (one via the A5/A46 corridor and the other paralleling the A6), but would the cost of an overall bigger motorway network have been worth it?