M67 motorway

Template:POV check The M67 is a short motorway in Tameside, Greater Manchester, forming an A57 bypass for the towns of Denton and Hyde. It was originally conceived as part of a trans-Pennine motorway route linking Manchester and Sheffield but these plans never came to full fruition. There are plans to upgrade the A57/A628 road beyond the eastern end of the M67.

The only sections constructed are those in use today: the Denton Relief Road (completed last - in 1981) and the Hyde Bypass (completed first - in 1978). Although the motorway was constructed as a bypass for the old A57, it never strays more than a mile from the original route, passing almost through the town centres of Denton and Hyde. The separate schemes are connected by a viaduct over the River Tame and Peak Forest Canal.

Before the motorway reaches its eastern terminal at Hattersley/Mottram Roundabout (dumping the traffic into Longdendale and serving the Manchester overspill estate), there are the remnants of where the motorway would have continued eastwards. However, these will not be used in the planned extension scheme, as the Longdendale bypass will not have motorway status.

A similar continuation is in evidence before the M67 ends at Denton Interchange. "Ski ramps" lead into the air, where the carriageways would have continued over the roundabout towards an elevated section towards Manchester.

If a planned road-building scheme is completed, the "M67" will continue as the A57/A628 Mottram, Hollingworth and Tintwistle Bypass (more commonly known as the Longdendale Bypass), which will be an at-grade, dual-carriageway road bypassing the villages. It has been mooted that additional crawler lanes will be provided, which would provide the scope to upgrade to motorway in the future, if the need arises.

Another part of the originally planned "M67" exists in South Yorkshire, as the A616 Stocksbridge Bypass. As there was no certainty that the whole M67 scheme would ever be completed, the then Government decided that the scheme would not be built with motorway characteristics, but as a single carriageway with crawler lanes. There have been more than 26 deaths since the road opened in 1989. Numerous debates have taken place in Parliament about what can be done to improve the road, which led to the installation of SPECS cameras and the introduction of a 60mph speed limit. A year went by without any deaths or major injuries. Then, tragically, 2 young brothers died in their mother's vehicle, followed by 2 bikers in a further incident.

Originally the M67 motorway was designated as the "Manchester to Sheffield All-Weather Route", when approved back in 1967. It provided a new motorway link across the Pennines, linking the two cities together by motorway, avoiding the notorious Snake and Woodhead passes, which are often closed in snowy weather.

The scheme would have left Manchester City Centre at what was the A57(M) eastern terminal roundabout (now a flyover for the A635, constructed in 1995), following the line of the A57 Hyde Road through the inner suburbs of Ardwick, Gorton and Debdale Park. Large scale demolition took place along the line of the motorway (which is still evident today), tied in with the widening of the Belle Vue and Reddish Lane junctions.

From there the intended route follows the present-day M67, skirting Hyde and Denton. Upon reaching Mottram, the route passed the village to the north (through a tunnel), then crossed Mottram Moor to skirt Hollingworth through the Etherow valley floor. The motorway would then have run around the side of Bottoms Reservoir to reach Hadfield, from which the trackbed of the Woodhead railway line (the former intercity route between Manchester and Sheffield, now closed) was to have been followed up the Longdendale valley to Woodhead. At Woodhead, the route would have diverged, with one carriageway entering the Woodhead Rail Tunnel (now disused) and the other rising on a sweeping viaduct to go over a realigned Woodhead Pass.

Beyond the Pennine watershed, the motorway would have continued on a new alignment past the villages of Langsett and Midhopestones, before meeting the Stocksbridge Bypass.

The Stocksbridge Bypass would have been constructed on its present alignment as the A616 and continued directly onto the M1 at junction 35A, which was built specifically as a junction with the M67 (and signposted thus).

Although the beauty of the Dark Peak area was saved by not completing the motorway, many innocent lives have been lost, in addition to damages to health, time and the environment.

External links

• Pathetic motorways (http://pathetic.org.uk/Motorways/m67.htm)