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history; public policy; roads & highways
Britain's first motorways opened just over 50 years ago, heralding a new form of efficient high-speed surface transport. They have since grown to a national network of 3500 km which now carries 37% of the UK's overland freight traffic. However, motorway development has all but ground to a halt over the past two decades and there are no plans to build any more. This paper reports on the history of the motorway-building programme in the UK and the lessons learnt by the civil engineering profession. It concludes that a new and more positive policy for national road transport is needed.
It was in 1995 that the history of Britain's motorways began to be assembled and the records archived. The late Sir Peter Baldwin, a former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Transport, recognised the sources of knowledge, the material and the people involved in building the motorway network were fast disappearing and invited three past presidents of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation - Ron Bridle, John Cox and Tom Williams - to join him in considering how to record for posterity the immense engineering achievement and history in building Britain's motorways. The outcome was The Motorway Archive Trust (Figure 1).
The written contributions of over 500 individuals have enabled the trust to publish a series of books, a compact disc (CD) and a website. Three of the books have a national theme, five a regional interest and one is concerned with motorway management. The CD gives details of the construction of many bridges on the motorway network and the website provides an introduction to every section of motorway (www.ukmotorwayarchive.org).
The books and CD record a great engineering achievement and provide a deep insight into the engineering problems encountered in building today's 3500 km motorway network and as an example, engineers can learn how the early problems of designing motorway pavements were tackled and how the drainage systems evolved.
This paper draws heavily on the content of the three national volumes and provides an insight to how the motorway network came about and the learning process of the construction years and gives a personal view on how Britain's road network should develop in the future.