Can Birmingham's concrete masterpiece really be that scary for motorists who don't live in the West Midlands? Apparently so. Pete Millington drives to the defence of our own several pillars of wisdom.
Recent research by Highway Insurance has reported that Spaghetti Junction is Britain's 2nd 'scariest' junction after Hanger Lane gyratory system in London. In the top 10, Spaghetti Junction beats off London roads to hell such as Marble Arch and the Elephant and Castle, as well as South Mimms in Hertfordshire and the Magic Roundabout in Swindon.
And yet they all have such lovely names.
According to the research, drivers become apprehensive when driving through Spaghetti Junction and this anxiety affects their driving behaviour adversly. But Chris Hill, managing director of Highway Insurance, also said 'I suspect that for many people, the thought of these junctions is actually worse than the reality'.
So is Spaghetti Junction's reputation actually undeserved then? For instance, it was designed as one of the first complex road junctions in the country which doesn't need traffic lights, so for most drivers passing through the so called Gravelly Hell interchange, all they have to worry about is driving in a straight line. The delays and tail-backs are not the fault of the road system itself but of the volume of traffic on the actual motorways.
It was perhaps with some sense of irony that I chose the name Spaghetti Gazetti for my magazine and blog, but I also maintain that this remarkable feat of 1960s road engineering is a fantastic metaphor for our wonderful region of the West Midlands. Here at the heart of the country is this almost whacky, tongue-in cheek, fairgroundesque road layout which can take travellers to the four corners of both our region and our country. Ok it's getting a bit worse for wear, so maybe a contemporary design make-over is due?
All about Spaghetti Junction
If non-Brummies are asked to think of things that symbolise Birmingham, the betting is that they will probably come up with one or more of the following three items: the Bullring, the Rotunda and most likely of all … Spaghetti Junction. Whilst millions of people come in and out of Birmingham every year as tourists and visitors, many more people drive straight past it on their journeys to other places. The reason that so many people drive so close to Birmingham but don’t pay us a visit (140,000 vehicles pass through Spaghetti Junction every day) is actually not because they don’t like us (or at least we hope not), but because Birmingham is at the centre of one of the country’s busiest road networks.
The official title of Spaghetti Junction is the Gravelly Hill Interchange and it is also recorded as Junction 6 on the M6 motorway. The interchange is where the M6 connects with various local roads, including the A38M motorway (Aston Expressway) and the A38 (Lichfield Road) as well as a number of other roads that lead to different areas of Birmingham.
Fifteen years in the planning, design and construction, Spaghetti Junction was completed in 1972. It was designed by the engineering firm, Sir Owen Williams & Partners, who had been commissioned by the Ministry of Transport in 1958 to investigate new routes which could link up existing motorways. Nowadays Spaghetti Junction is the focal point in a much wider motorway network with branches going off in all directions. The circular ring of motorways around the perimeters of Birmingham provide the following links to other motorways:
The M6 northbound heads towards Manchester and the north west with links to the M5 south towards Bristol and South Wales and the M54 to Telford in the direction of North Wales.
The M6 southbound heads towards the M1 running up and down the centre of England from London to Leeds with the M69 branching off the M6 towards Leicester.
The M42 southbound leads to both the London bound M40 and the Bristol bound M5 south.
The M42 north east heads in the direction of Derby and Nottingham with a link to the new M6 toll road that connects Coleshill in the south with Cannock in the north.
Only London, Yorkshire and Lancashire have such extensive motorway networks, but Birmingham is fundamental to the whole lot because of it’s central position. When Spaghetti Junction was first built at a cost of £10.8 million pounds (equivalent to £86.2 million today) it was the largest motorway interchange in Europe and the first free flowing, i.e. it did not rely on roundabouts or traffic lights to control the flow of traffic through it.
However, in order to achieve this innovative free flow of traffic, the challenge for the architects was to come up with a design whereby a number of new and existing roads could cross one another whilst also being linked to one another and all at one site. The location chosen had previously been used for similar purposes when the Tame Valley Canal Bypass was constructed there in 1844 to ease the strain on Birmingham’s canal network.
Spaghetti Junction was officially opened on 24th May 1972 by Peter Walker MP, the Secretary of State for the Environment. It was generally welcomed by the country’s motorists as it ultimately linked every corner of the UK through the developing motorway network and thus cut down travelling time considerably. It’s critics called it ugly, disjointed and horrible, especially those 160 householders whose properties were demolished to make way for it. The Erdington Arms pub was also a victim to the march of progress. Birmingham historian Vivian Bird, writing in 1974, referred to Spaghetti Junction as an act of ‘plandalism’, calling it the Gravelly Hill earthquake and a wall that imprisoned the people of Birmingham:
“Birmingham has been torn asunder that traffic from everywhere else may thunder through the suburbs. To Birmingham citizens this Gravelly Hill intersection has been for long a barrier, surmountable only by those with the strongest nerves or the weakest sensibilities, a labyrinth penetrable only by drivers with the fortitude of Theseus”.
But, in common with the 1960s built Bull Ring shopping centre, our precious Rotunda and more recently our beloved Iron Man at the top of New Street, we Brummies are actually quite fond of our most famous landmark, Spaghetti Junction. Claims that there is a seaside resort in the middle of it may be exaggerations, urban myths or just plain old bonkers, but planners beware, knock it down at your peril!
Other interesting facts about Spaghetti Junction:
Holy inspiration
Birmingham Cathedral recently commissioned designer Yvonne Bell to create a new set of vestments for their clergy in which was incorporated an abstract pattern based on an aerial photo of the aforementioned Gravelly Hill Interchange.
Respectable
Spaghetti Junction has it’s own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
A Lot of Concrete and Pillars
Spaghetti Junction has 559 concrete columns, 13,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement and at the peak of it’s construction over 300 tonnes of concrete was being mixed every hour.
Find out more at the website links below:
www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/heritage/england/birmingham
Other reference material used to research this page:
Portrait of Birmingham by Vivian Bird / Published by Robert Hale & Company, 1974
