Smart motorways

Did you go away for the Easter weekend or bank holiday? Maybe past Birmingham, Preston or Stoke on Trent? If so, you probably took the oldest motorway in the UK. Opened in 1958 the M6 was first known as the ‘Preston Bypass’ and initially only consisted only of a few lanes.

Shortly after the M6 came the M1, which ran the length of the country. With no speed limits or lighting we can only imagine what a driving experience that would have been! Fast forward to the 21st century, we now have Smart Motorways which have created concerns for some. Although statistics show that Smart Motorways are safe compared to motorways of the 1950’s, the replacement of the hard shoulder with emergency refuge areas is not universally appealing.

Smart Motorways were first introduced in 2006 as a means of managing the flow of traffic and to ease congestion caused by roadworks, traffic jams and hazards. The jury may still be out on their success, but ‘The Engineer’ website states that ‘while further data is being collected, National Highways will continue work to complete schemes that are currently in construction, and design work will continue on those schemes already being planned.’ So, whatever your view on Smart Motorways, it looks like they are here to stay, keeping Civil Engineers busy for the foreseeable.