M1 motorway

This article describes the English motorway. For the Northern Irish motorway see M1 motorway (Northern Ireland) , for the Irish M1 motorway (Ireland) .

M1 motorway in the UK
map
Basic data
Operator:	Highways Agency
further operator:	Yorkshire Link
Overall length:	307.1 km (190.8  mi )
Countries :	England
Development condition:	six-lane, partly eight-lane
The M1 south of Leeds
Course of the road Greater London Start of the Autobahn (1)  North Circular Road (E), West End (2)  North Circular Road (E), The City ( HAS Leeds) London Gateway (Scratchwood) (4)  Edgware ( HAS Leeds) Hertfordshire (5)  Watford , Harrow, Aylesbury (6)  Watford, St Albans ( ) (6A)  Stansted , Dartford , Heathrow (only possible to / from Leeds) (7)  St Albans, Hatfield ( HAS Leeds) (8th)  Hemel Hempstead (9)  Dunstable , Redbourn Bedfordshire (10)  Luton , Luton Airport (11)  Luton, Dunstable Toddington (12)  Flitwick, Woburn , Houghton Regis (13)  Milton Keynes , Bedford , Ampthill Buckinghamshire (14)  Milton Keynes, Newport Pagnell Newport Pagnell Northamptonshire (14)  Northampton (15A)  Northampton, Oxford Rothersthorpe (connected to the previous junction) (16)  Northampton, Daventry Watford Gap (17)  Coventry ( ABG London) (18)  Daventry, Hickley, rugby Leicestershire (19)  The NORTH WEST , Coventry, Birmingham , Felixstowe , Corby , Kettering (20)  Lutterworth , Market Harborough , Rugby (21)  Coventry, Birmingham, Leicester Leicester Forest East (21A)  Leicester, Newark (HAS London) (22)  Ashby, Coalville , Leicester (23)  Loughborough , Ashby (23A)  East Midlands Airport , Stoke , Derby , The SOUTH WEST , Tamworth , Birmingham Donington Park (integrated with the surrounding junctions) (24)  Nottingham , East Midlands Airport, Loughborough (24A)  Derby, Stoke (HAS Leeds) Derbyshire (25)  Nottingham, Derby, Ilkeston Nottinghamshire Trowell (26)  Nottingham, Ripley, Ilkeston (27)  Mansfield , Heanor, Hucknall Derbyshire (28)  Mansfield, Matlock , Derby Tibshelf (29)  Chesterfield , Mansfield, Matlock (29A)  Markham Vale, Bolsover (30)  Sheffield , Worksop , Chesterfield, Newark South Yorkshire Woodall (31)  Worksop (32)  The NORTH , Doncaster , Hull (33)  Sheffield, Rotherham (34)  Sheffield (Meadowhall), Rotherham (35)  Rotherham (35A)  Manchester (HAS London) (36)  Barnsley , Sheffield (37)  Barnsley, Manchester (38)  Huddersfield West Yorkshire Woolley Edge (39)  Wakefield , Denby Dale (40)  Dewsbury , Batley, Wakefield (41)  Wakefield, Morley (42)  Manchester, Bradford , Hull (43)  Leeds (ABG London) (44)  Leeds ( ) (45)  Leeds (46)  Leeds, Leeds Bradford Airport , Selby (47)  Garforth , Castleford (48)  The SOUTH , Hull (ABG North) Continue on  Wetherby , Northern England

The M1 motorway ( English for M1 ) is a motorway in England . It extends for a length of 300 km (187 miles ) north-south between the north London bypass and the Leeds city ​​limits . Built as the UK's first motorway, it is often referred to as the heart of the UK motorway network.

history

The first section was opened on November 2, 1959, the southern end of the motorway by the then Minister of Transport Ernest Marples . In his opening speech, he described the autobahn as "a great autobahn, which heralds a new era of road traffic and thus keeps pace with the exciting new age of science in which we live," in his opening speech.

The construction of the first 72-mile portion of the piece lasted 19 months - it was so built one mile highway in eight days - and then cost 16.5 million GBP . 5,000 workers moved 20 million tons of earth and rock. They were taken to work in double-decker buses, and there was a canteen every 2.5 miles on the edge of the construction site. The entire M1 cost £ 50 million to build at the time.

In 1999, the M1 was extended at its northern end by a further 8 miles to the northeast, bypassing Leeds to the east and merging with the A1 .

Traffic volume

The M1 was designed for a daily traffic volume of approx. 13,000 vehicles. Today, up to 140,000 vehicles use the M1 every day, with the highest traffic density between exits 7 and 10. Because of the heavy traffic jams, the M1 is also jokingly called the largest car park in England. This situation is also due to the fact that the number of vehicles on Great Britain's roads has increased from 2.8 million in 1959 to over 27.5 million.

Incident: Airplane accident

On Sunday, January 8, 1989, a British Midland Airways Boeing 737-400 crashed in an attempted emergency landing shortly before East Midlands Airport . The aircraft had touched the ground for the first time shortly before crossing the M1 and hit a slope on the opposite side, killing 47 passengers. Nobody was harmed on the autobahn. In the course of the investigation, the motorway was completely closed for a week.

Web links

Commons : M1 motorway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Information on the M1 at cbrd.co.uk

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lesley Pendleton: Kegworth Air Disaster 1989. Kegworth Village, accessed May 6, 2015 (English). 
2. ↑ Ben Truslove: Kegworth air disaster: Plane crash survivors' stories. BBC, January 8, 2014, accessed May 6, 2015 .