M45 motorway

M45 motorway in the UK
Basic data
Operator:	Highways Agency
Overall length:	12.7 km (7.9  mi )
Countries :	England
Development condition:	four lanes
Course of the road Warwickshire On to  rugby , Coventry Start of the Autobahn (1)  Dunchurch B4429 (-)  Daventry ( HAS Coventry) Northamptonshire ((17))  The SOUTH , Northampton ( ABG London) On to  London

The M45 motorway ( English for ' M45 motorway ') is a short motorway in the Midlands of England . It serves as a feeder to the M1 Motorway from Coventry .

This motorway, along with the M1 and M10, is the second oldest in Great Britain and opened in 1959. It was built to distribute the traffic more efficiently over the existing A-road network, as there were no connecting motorways at that time; the M45 took traffic towards Birmingham and was the counterpart of the M10 at St Albans . In 1972, however, the M6 was opened further north and the majority of traffic was relocated there, so that today the M45 is one of the least traveled motorways in the United Kingdom.

If you disregard the later construction of the junction at Dunchurch and the installation of the crash barriers on the dividing strip, the highway remains largely in its original condition and is still crossed by original flyovers from the 1950s.

Web links

Commons : M45 motorway  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• M45 on cbrd.co.uk