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Photograph of an urban dual carriageway with traffic travelling and changing lanes as the road snakes towards the camera. An electronic sign is mounted on a gantry with the legend "Ring Road, Car Parking, (M1 South, M40), Rugby (A45), Warwick (A46)" shown in various colours.

A huge electronic sign stands on the verge of an urban road, showing a diagram of a roundabout with car parks indicated on each of its three arms.

A busy urban dual carriageway passes in front of a row of houses. A metal gantry structure supports an electronic sign with a message about Coventry Motofest and road closure information.

A few years ago Coventry started converting its street signs to huge LED panels - now any sign can say anything, but the bright idea has yet to catch on elsewhere. Come and take a tour of the city's bright new lights. #coventry www.roads.org.uk/blog/bright-...

Just published - a new video in our retro collection, travelling the A470's twisting, turning expressway from Abercynon to Cardiff along the Taff Valley. youtu.be/JFPpWG0gtHQ

An original sign approaching the Corbridge Bypass on the A69. It's unusual for having a pre-1981 "tons" roundel as well as having a junction name specified - these weren't formally introduced into the regulations until 1994.

Another original sign approaching the Corbridge Bypass showing a junction name.

These 1970s signs still survive. What's most interesting is the use of junction names, something not officially permitted until 1994.

Keen eyes will also note the pre-1981 HGV restriction sign.

@roads.org.uk

That’s a beauty! And on a stripey pole as well.

M67 The M67 forms a bypass for the A57 through Denton and Hyde just east of Manchester, though not a bypass for the towns themselves, as it ploughs straight through both of them.

It was meant to cross the Pennines, and it triggered the closure of an intercity railway - but this little motorway never really got started. Meet the short road with big ideas, Greater Manchester's M67. www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m67

Black and white aerial photograph of Worsley Interchange under construction, with a complex of swirling sliproads around the crossing of two motorways

Black and white photograph looking along an unfinished motorway. Two carriageways with a line of streetlights curve right then left into the distance between buildings

Black and white aerial photograph of an urban motorway under construction, with a route cleared through buildings and railway lines from a roundabout in the foreground away into the distance

Coloured diagram of Worsley Interchange, with the four arms of the junction labelled M62, M63 and M602, and sliproads colour coded to relate them to each route

The first section of the M602 opened in 1971 to great fanfare - the first stage of a whole network of urban motorways for Greater Manchester that mostly never happened. Get a feel for the pride and the optimism in the book that marked its opening. #eccles #salford www.roads.org.uk/opening-book...

A diamond on the rough Nobody likes a concrete road. Promises have been made time and again to get rid of them all - but perhaps there’s another solution.

The notorious concrete surface of the M25 in Surrey recently gained some quiet patches. National Highways have been diamond grinding it - a novel treatment for concrete roads that we first explored a few years back. #m25 #surrey www.roads.org.uk/blog/diamond...

I need to go back to Wales and do it again. I do love it and I haven’t been on the finished HOVR yet. But yes, that bit is always longer and more boring than I remember!

Genuinely exciting!

If you’re passing that sign you’ve chosen not to take the thrilling mega loop up to the viaduct!

Ringway 2 Western Section A critically important link in London's proposed urban motorway network - but fierce opposition from the locals made the authorities scared to ever reveal its route.

Back in the 60s London had big plans for urban motorways. Some were all over the news, but others were a complete secret. Ringway 2's Western Section was so secretive it was under wraps for more than 50 years... until we published this article. #barnes #chiswick www.roads.org.uk/ringways/rin...

No exit Bristol’s M32 recently gained a new junction for buses only. To mark this strange new addition to the motorway network, here are five places you can’t leave the motorway.

A few years ago the M32 gained a new junction that was just for buses. It made us wonder... where else can't you leave the motorway? #bristol www.roads.org.uk/blog/no-exit

Photograph of a fingerpost type direction sign. The two fingers point roughly to the left, in only slightly different directions. One reads "The North (A1)" and the other "The South (A1)".

Photograph of a road passing through a quiet and picturesque village. A row of old stone cottages is on the left

Photograph of a road in a quiet village, with a half-timbered house on the left and a stone cottage on the right obscured by hedges. In the foreground a direction sign points up the road, with the legend "(A1), (A47)"

Photograph of a narrow road passing over a very long stone bridge with low walls on either side and trees overhanging in some places.

A few years ago the A6118 ceased to exist. But for 90 years before that, it formed one of the UK's shortest and most pointless numbered roads. We took a ride along it a few years ago... it didn't take long. #wansford #cambridgeshire www.roads.org.uk/photo/all-a6...

M2 (Northern Ireland) Central to Northern Ireland's motorway network, the M2 is the road to the north, and possibly the most varied motorway anywhere in the UK.

The biggest and busiest road in Northern Ireland was never finished: it's got a gap that will never now be plugged, and halfway along it randomly turns into another road. Meet the M2s - both of them - and their ongoing identity crisis. www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m2-ni

The sunlit uplands On Saturday 31 May something historic happened. The Heads of the Valleys Road was finally complete.

The decades-long work to upgrade the A465 Heads of the Valleys Road in South Wales is finally finished. Earlier this week we celebrated the occasion by welcoming the A465 to our Motorway Database. Have you driven the finished road yet? #a465 #wales www.roads.org.uk/blog/sunlit-...

It’s been a long time since I read the Act that enables the ferry, road and toll but I recall it giving the company some quite remarkable powers and capabilities.

Signal experiment ahead

There was an attempt in the 1980s called the amber arrow - since I wrote the page below I’ve had an email from someone who remembers one in Harrow so I think one or two did briefly exist. www.roads.org.uk/articles/ped...

No, come on, stop that

Oh, that’s great! And “southbound” too. Fantastic. I’m sure there’s a sliproad called “Slip Road” somewhere but I can’t remember where now.

I bet - it’s one of those things that looks like a tourist thing to get to the seaside (and was, when it was set up) but in reality it must carry a lot of commuter traffic.

A small car ferry, painted white and loaded with vehicles, is seen mid-stream crossing a channel of water. A beach is in the foreground and the opposite shore is wooded with houses

A road lined with parked cars, with two road signs in the foreground - one is a roundabout warning, the other is a non-standard design that has a red triangle containing the word "toll"

Photograph of an old direction sign pointing to the right, bearing the text "Poole, Bournemouth via toll ferry"

Photograph of a two-lane road stretching into the distance between scrubby trees; the verges are sand and a number of cars are parked on them

There's an argument that the forerunner to the motorway network is a little road through sand dunes in Dorset. Join us at the seaside for the unexpected story of the Studland Motor Road. #dorset www.roads.org.uk/articles/stu...

Road sign shapes Did you know that the shape of a road sign will tell you what kind of sign it is? The six basic shapes, and their meanings, are here.

UK road signs come in six different shapes, and they all have specific meanings. Do you know why the triangles are triangular and the circles circular? Find out with our handy guide. www.roads.org.uk/road-signs/r...

Looking out for number one Markerposts are meant to start at one end of a road and count the kilometres to the other. But things are never that simple.

You'd think the markerposts at the side of the road start at 1 and count upwards from there. But nothing about the UK road network is ever that simple. Welcome to a bewildering world of false origins, false starts and a lot of roads without a zero! www.roads.org.uk/blog/looking...

They’re really funny looking lights - not sure I ever saw one in the wild.

M876 The M876 is a little motorway that makes a shortcut between the M80 and M9, and provides a way for people in Glasgow to reach the Kincardine Bridge and Fife.

Q. Which motorway can't count?
A. The one where the junctions are numbered 8, 1, 2, 8, 7, 3.
www.roads.org.uk/motorway/m876

I think this was a server side caching thing. I’ve disabled that completely for now, and I can’t replicate the problem any more. Fingers crossed that’s killed it.

That's really annoying, sorry. It's been working for me, but trying a different device just now got me the problem you describe. Clearing browser caches on that device has fixed it.

Yes, you're right. I've had a poke about and I think it's happy again - is it still doing it or does it seem OK now?

Yes, the first bit was very much one of the easy bits and the rest felt a very long way away. The pace really picked up in later years.

They also learned the lessons of the 60s road and did it properly - one reason it’s taken so long is that there was no attempt to repeat the one massive project of the 60s that stretched its resources too thinly.