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The Preston Bypass was the United Kingdom's first motorway, opened in 1958.It was designed and engineered by Lancashire County Council surveyor James Drake as part of a larger initiative to create a north-south motorway network that would later form part of the M6 motorway.
Ireland has six official motorway service areas, but 16 in total. The first service area, Lusk services, opened on the M1 on 8 September 2010.. For many years, the National Roads Authority (NRA) opposed building services, preferring traffic to use existing businesses in bypassed towns, and that the motorway network was not large enough to support them. [12]
From 1946 government plans incorporated a new north-south trunk route through Lancashire. So did Drake's plan, which he pressed on the government from 1949 to 1955. Work began in 1956 on the Preston bypass with the county as the government's agent. This became the first section of Britain's motorway system, opened to traffic in 1958.
Motorway service areas, also known as service stations, are places where drivers can leave a motorway to refuel, rest, or take refreshments. Some also incorporate or adjoin hotels. Only 20 motorway services in the UK remain in the ownership of the Department for Transport and let on 50-year leases to private operating companies. [1]
There were 180 staff, and parking for 380 cars and 130 trucks or coaches. Each side had 24 petrol pumps. The first manager was W. L. Denman. [2] [3] It was the first Top Rank service area to open, followed by Knutsford Services later in the year then by Forton Services in 1965; both are on the M6.
The first section of motorway, the M6 Preston Bypass, opened in 1958, followed by the first major section of motorway (the M1 between Crick and Berrygrove in Watford), which opened in 1959. From then until the 1980s, motorways opened at frequent intervals; by 1972 the first 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) of motorway had been built.
Britain's first motorway, the M6 was equipped with motorway service areas (MSA). In contrast to the United States, commercialized rest areas along state-owned motorways are common in Europe. Many of the British MSAs have footbridges for crossing the motorway but only five MSAs were built as bridge restaurants, all in the early 1960s.
The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; [2] the first motorway in the country was the Preston Bypass, which later became part of the M6. [3] The motorway is 193 miles (311 km) long and was constructed in four ...