Spaghetti Junction

Spaghetti Junction

If you are a regular listener to these podcasts, you will know that I live in Birmingham. In Birmingham, we have the most famous landmark in the whole of Britain. A landmark means a place, or a building, or a natural feature like a river or a mountain, that everyone knows about. And what is Birmingham’s famous landmark? An ancient castle, perhaps, or a cathedral, or a statue on the top of a hill? No. None of these. Our famous landmark is called Spaghetti Junction. It is not, as you might think, an Italian restaurant. It is an interchange, or junction, on the M6 motorway about5 km north of the centre of Birmingham. If you look at the picture on the website, or on your iPod screen, you will see why people call it Spaghetti Junction. It looks like a plate of spaghetti.

Now, please don’t send me e- mails to say that you have a motorway junction called Spaghetti Junction in your country too. I don’t care about your Spaghetti Junction. Birmingham’s Spaghetti Junction was the first Spaghetti Junction, and it is still the largest motorway junction in Europe. Work on Spaghetti Junction started40 years ago, in1968, and was finished four years later. About150,000 vehicles, and5 million tons of freight, pass through Spaghetti Junction every day.

Everyone in Britain knows about Spaghetti Junction and where it is, even people who have never visited Birmingham itself. It is so well- known because it is unavoidable. If you travel by road in Britain, sooner or later you will pass Spaghetti Junction. You will remember it because it is the place where the traffic gets really bad, where the journey gets really boring and where the children start fighting in the back of the car. And if by accident you take the wrong road at Spaghetti Junction, you will find yourself in London instead of Manchester. Some people who took the wrong road at Spaghetti Junction five years ago are still trying to find their way home. So be careful.

Here are some other interesting things about Spaghetti Junction. It is not just a motorway junction. Underneath the motorway there are two railway lines, three canals, a river and several footpaths. There is a Birmingham joke that two of the roads at Spaghetti Junction are dead- ends. And another Birmingham joke that there is a beach underneath the concrete arches of the motorway. A beach? It is in fact just a bank of dirt and gravel, with a view over a smelly river and an old factory. You are welcome to come to Birmingham for a beach holiday if you like, but you may find that Spain would be better.

More seriously, it was necessary to demolish a few hundred houses and other buildings to build the motorway and Spaghetti Junction. The motorway created a barrier which cuts off the northern suburbs of the city from the city centre. The vehicles on the motorway create noise and pollution over a wide area. Birmingham today– more than any other British city– is a city of roads and cars, of heavy lorries and multi- storey car- parks and poor public transport. So perhaps it is appropriate that Birmingham’s most famous landmark is a motorway junction.