EXPRESSWAYS

Improvement of radial roads has cut Aston into three. The aim was 'grade separation', the reduction of traffic delay by limiting access to the highways, blocking most side-streets and providing over- or under-passes at the few essential junctions. An early work on A34 was Birchfield Underpass (1962), followed by that at Six Ways a year later; in 1971 the flyover at Trinity Road linked them. When the M6 was planned as an urban motorway along the Tame valley, and a feeder to it from central Birmingham was required, it was realised that the A38 Lichfield Road could not be improved to expressway standard.

So a new highway was proposed which would pass through South Aston and Queens Road areas, already scheduled for re-development: A38(M), 21/3 miles long with seven traffic lanes, was built between 1969 and 1972. It starts with an elevated approach from Queensway over Lancaster Circus and level access at Lower Corporation Street: there is a 3/4 mile cutting under Dartmouth Circus (Middleway) and Park Circus (Victoria Road): therefrom the road crosses the Park's east end, the Tame valley, embankments of the Grand Junction amid Sutton lines, Electric Avenue and the Tame Valley Canal, on a 700-yard steel box beam viaduct, which is concrete decked and pillared, to Gravelly Hill Interchange.

Alongside, the Tame has been diverted into a curved channel, to accommodate which Salford Reservoir has been reduced. At the intersection, univer-sally known as 'Spaghetti Junction', there is access to the M6 north and south and the A38 old and new (Gravelly Hill, Tyburn Road).

The expressway can be joined at both circuses but can be left only by cityward traffic. A skew bridge flyover, to which pedestrian access is provided by a spiral ramp at Phillips Street, takes traffic from Middleway to Aston Cross. Park Lane crosses the cutting without access: footbridges at Park Circus and Tower Road carry service mains. Many side-streets have of necessity become dead-ends.

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