M6 motorway

M6 motorway is the longest motorway in England, at 232 miles long. It links the M1 motorway and A14 road at Catthorpe in Leicestershire in the south, to the Guards Mill interchange in Cumberland, where the road continues as the A74(M) motorway to Scotland. A major road in the Midlands and North West of England, it serves several major cities, most notably Birmingham, as well as Coventry, Stoke-on-Trent and Wolverhampton. The M6 is bypassed around Birmingham and the Black Country by a parallel toll motorway, the M6 Toll; the M6 itself is, like most British motorways, entirely toll free. The first section of M6 to open, and aslo the first length of motorway in Britain, was the bypass of Preston in 1958; the present course of the motorway was completed 50 years later in 1958. Other major settlements on the M6 include (from north to south) Carlisle, Lancaster, Wigan, St Helens, Warrington, Newcastle under Lyme, Stafford and Rugby. It also, via adjoining motorways such as the M56, M61 and M62, serves the major south Lancashire towns such as Liverpool and Manchester, with traffic leaving at Warrington or Preston, the latter also being where traffic joins the M55 for Blackpool.

The M6 passes through the counties of (north to south) Cumberland, Westmorland, Lancashire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire.

Course

The southern terminus of the M6 is at Catthorpe in Leicestershire, at junction 19 of the M1. At this point, southbound traffic joins either the M1 for Northampton and, ultimately, London, or the A14 which goes to Felixstowe in Suffolk via Cambridge. In the other direction, the road begins a westerly trajectory towards the Birmingham built-up area. Entering Warwickshire, junction 1 on the M6 is for the large town of Rugby. The next major settlement on the road is Coventry where, at junction 2, the M69 takes traffic towards Leicester and the A46 heads south west toward Warwick and Stratford-upon-Avon.

At Coleshill, just east of Birmingham, is the junction for the M6 Toll, which bypasses Birmingham and the Black Country via Lichfield and Cannock, and the M42 which takes traffic north toward Nottingham and the M1, and south towards Worcestershire. The road passes immediately north of central Birmingham, with both north and southbound traffic exiting for the city centre at the Gravely Hill interchange onto the A38(M) motorway. The M6 crosses into Staffordshire in the Perry Barr area of Birmingham, near which is Great Bar interchange (Junction 8), where traffic from either direction joins the M5 motorway which, via Worcester, joins the road with the South West of England.

The road heads, via the Black Country towns of Walsall and Wednesbury, to Wolverhampton, immediately north of which is junction 10A, where northbound traffic exits onto the M54 motorway bound for Shropshire. To the north of that is junction 11, where northbound traffic on the M6 Toll joins the road, and where southbound traffic joins the M6 Toll. To the north of that, there are two junctions on the M6 serving the town of Stafford.

To the north is the Potteries conurbation, which is served from the M6 by the A500. The A500, via Newcastle under Lyme, serves as a business loop from the M6 to the city of Stoke-on-Trent. At junction 16, the northernmost junction for the A500, the M6 crosses from Staffordshire into Cheshire.