Secrets of The Motorway - A167M
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- #infrastructure #cars #newcastle #motorway #driving
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This week we're in Newcastle taking a look at the inner city, urban, A167M... The short motorway that has it all. Abandoned sliproads, ghost sliproads, cancelled plans, dangerous junctions all within a little over a mile. How exciting! Not only that, it's all squeezed into an impossibly small space, you'd barely notice the motorway...sort of.
In this series I aim to explore what our motorway network is hiding. As we drive along at 70mph..ish...we simply just wouldn't be aware of what we're missing. This series will uncover some of the hidden secrets our motorways have to offer - Auta a dopravní prostředky
Hello Jon, how the devil are you, have you had a good week?
🤣🤣🤣
A167M is pure infrastructure porn. I used to live up this way and going straight from bridge into tunnel into double stack motorway (all thanks to Newcastle's gorgeous topography) always gave like cool dystopian Metropolis vibes.
Also, the fact that a council decided to funnel money into the metro instead of building roads back in the '60s/'70s blows my mind. And thank fk they did!
Often get people being forced to cut across 3 lanes in that underpass section
I have no idea how I happened upon your channel, but I love it.
Have I ever been to these places? No
Do I even live in the country? No
Your humour, alone, is enough to keep me watching.
Keep up the great work sir 👏🏼
Fun fact!
There are in fact no unexciting episodes of Secrets of the Motorway.
There was a plan for one, coincidentally about the A617M. The script was written, shooting locations selected, drone batteries charged - but then a change in the council meant the funding disappeared, and the new council found the original script had been buggered up royally. So they cancelled that video, and used the funds for a newly rewritten script which was much better planned and yet somehow makes it effortlessly seem that stuff just happens, which is crazy when you think about it.
Overall it's pretty wicked sweet awesome.
Thanks again Jon, and have a great week!
And how the devil are you?
I like this and so I have pressed the button specifically for that 👍🏻
That merge as you come south from Gosforth is ****ing terrifying!
Yes I can vouch for that 😂. The only thing us southerners have similar to this is under the A40 at Paddington but it's nowhere near as terrifying
Speaking as a Geordie, i'd like to thank you for reviewing our part-time carpark, and i hope you had a pleasant visit
I suppose due to the part time carpark nature, those dangerous junctions could be slightly more manageable. 😂
@@rogerwilkinson2192 once a year it's closed completely - the only time it can be described as safe!
I lived in Newcastle for a few years and had to use the A167M all the time and I always thought who created this wackiness? Mental and shrooms did occur to me too. There's some more mental roads over in central Gateshead too. Also I miss the Metro it's mint.
Anyone else hang around right to the very end to hear the Byker grove 'haha, haha'?
That "ha ha" at the end of Byker Grove theme has haunted me for years
"Conceived after a night on shrooms" .... Story of my life! 🤣
One thing the esteemed road planners on Tyneside did get right - as a van driver, I am seriously impressed by the replacement of bus lanes with "no car" lanes. Keeps road usage efficient
I think they're all gone now, converted to bus lanes. The only no-car lanes I can think of now are in sunderland
@@chickenfizz Oh bollox... it's been a while. Too good to last
I love ALL episodes for Auto Shenanigans but for whatever reason, I REALLY loved this one. Perfectly scripted and edited, entertainly and interesting and made me laugh out loud. Twice. Also contains *spoiler* the actual Byker Grove and the theme tune complete with the 'famous' three laughs at the end. Not sure you can top this one Jon!! 🤘
I'd completely forgotten just how Ma-Ma-Max Headroom the Byker Grove theme tune sounded.
Jon’s a national treasure
Thanks for finally exploring Newcastle’s favourite death-trap! What a fine piece of road it is!
Vaguely remember that junction being closed, around the same those student flats were built. Always assumed they were a factor too.
The A167m is absolutely insane. Trying to get from Barras Bridge to the A1058 involves crossing everything and moving across 4 lanes of 50mph traffic in about 300 yards of space
Yes, I'm sure the student buildings and redevelopment of the Warner Bros cinema area were the main reason for this being closed. Whilst I agree with John that it's "f*ing stupid" that explanation doesn't really cut it because the exact same situation applies to the section almost directly underneath it.
That's it...I've seen me Jago Hazard and now me Auto Shenanigans...my weekend is complete.
Driving home for Christmas in Newcastle with my family this evening, my wife and I are scheduling our entire trip from the South of the UK so she doesn't have to drive on the central motorway scissor junction at Jesmond Road.
My most hated motorway! The anxiety I get having to drive through this. The criss-cross short merging points are scary.
Inner city life
Inner city pressure
Fun Byker Grove trivia: the final episode starts with the kids all frozen in place but conscious and semi-aware of their fictional status, parts of the Grove are literally disappearing into white voids, the writers provide magic paper to allow the characters to write their own finishes, and ALSO a few of kids have wired the Grove to blow up.
And dinosaurs too.
Thank you, you don’t know how long I’ve waited for someone to explain how that mess of an urban roadway came to be.
I drive on it, at least a couple of times a week, and it can be baffling .
czcams.com/video/NheiCkrY-Xk/video.htmlsi=THe6bFmmdSjYLc1w
Possibly the biggest secret of the A167(M) and one that explains it fairly ridiculous route from North to South at a time when Newcastle was all for demolishing anything that stood upright after German remodelling between 1939 and 1945, is that it exactly follows the exact route of a defunct railway line.
Awesome video! My fave part of this crazy road is if you are coming from the B1318 from Haymarket station and heading to the coast road A1058, you have to merge onto the A167m from the right in the underground bit, then cross 3 lanes of 50mph traffic in about 150m to get to the coast road slip road! So dangerous and such a rush every time, I love it and would go out of my way to use that route when I lived in Newcastle 😂
Awww... they shut that sliproad. Back in the day the rumour was that the plans had been borrowed from Germany and that someone had forgotten to mirror them for driving on the left.
Another motorway based oddity in the area is that Haymarket metro station was originally constructed in a way that it could have been used as a pillar of a planned but never built urban motorway.
It was originally a low circular structure but was rebuilt in 2008.
Merry Xmas Jon
I didn’t realise that about the Haymarket although I knew about the old bus station in Eldon Square possibly being on the line of one of them
I’m glad the plans were never completed as it would have destroyed much of the city centre but at the same time it’s mental that all this was planned to start with
I use the A167M quite often, and I agree, it's a bit mental. But you get used to it.
Yep I quite like it! Though some sections are quite tense!
Absolutely bonkers! Great vid Jon!
Byker, Byker. Byker. Groooovve!
Before the motorway was built the A1 used to pass through central Newcastle. Most long distance drivers knew to head for the Tyne Tunnel to avoid that pinchpoint. Less than an hour after the motorway opened the zebra crossings in Gosforth, just North of Newcastle became impossible to use due to the weight of traffic using the new route. The drivers also saved on the tolls for the tunnel. The A1 was redirected through the tunnel to get the traffic away from the city.
the most lethal piece of that road is coming off the great north road northbound past barras bridge up a tiny slip road, then swinging straight into the 2nd lane of the southbound motorway, then trying to cross another lane if you want the coast road exit in the space of around 200m. That gets the old blood pumping.
That little closed off slip road onto the northbound section was bloody terrifying to use. Surprised it stayed open as long as it did!
I’ve had a shit week at work, plus sore throat and mild Man Flu all weekend, the missus has been away, the dishwasher’s broke ( and back-up gone away 🤣), endured a 2-hour carol service in the local church because my kids were in the choir… until this. Thanks Jon, you make it all worthwhile.
I bet the next episode of Secrets of The Motorway would be the A194 (M) and then the series will conclude with 2 parts of the M25.
Shrooms and a box of Scalectrix is a typical road planning scheme meeting.
As someone who came to Uni up here, of the four junctions, three are dangerous in at least one direction between merging, crossing and poor junction design. Its such a short road to have so many terror causing sections
Another hwicked sweet awesome video Jon, reminding us again that once upon a time civil engineers had ambition...
Don't you mean fwicked :)
Fantastic! I lived with in Windsor Terrace Newcastle Uni accomodation in 2017 and spenty days travelling home terrified of the sliproad that joined of the road on the righthand side of the motorway or from manors carpark. Great to see Newcastle finally mentioned on the channel!
Ditto, but 2000-2001
How can anyone claim to be university educated, yet use a phrase such as "joined off" & even then manage to spell it incorrectly?
A round of applause for that shot at 1:04, brilliant. Was kinda hoping for the Get Carter theme as the outro but I get that Byker Grove would be a more popular choice. Still shudder at that paintball incident..
He can't see man!!!
This brings back memories of being a child in the back seat of my parents Austin 1800 in the ‘70s on trips from home in mid Hampshire to cousins in Newcastle. To you, the A167(M) might mean questionable local government decision making and dangerous junctions (alright, I’ll give you that since my aunt had a car written off at one), but to me it will always mean the imminent end to travel sickness, I-spy and sibling squabbling, and the resultant realisation that there may be a god after all!
Just a word of thanks to you. I'm a vicar, so the "How the devil are you?" is probably someing I shouldn't like ... but I do. Every Sunday it makes me smile. Keep up the good work. You mixture of facts. humour, and sarcasm is really refreshing.
I like it too. It's a great figure of speech and considering the alternative might be the overused F word it is both polite and charasmatic at the same time. Another example would be in
*The Great Escape* where the Australian says "How the devil should I know?" when today the film would more than likely go again for the swearword. On other figures of speech, I am quite happy to instinctively say "Thank God For That" as a natural part of the language, without necessarily intending to say "Praise The Lord".
During his time with The Jam, Paul Weller wrote a song called “The Planner’s Dream Goes Wrong”. I think this may apply here
I drove into Newcastle a few weeks back for the first time in about 20 years. Navigating this motorway felt like a speeded up version of Mario Kart while on crack.
Another weird thing about the A167(M) is that you can cycle from the Swan House roundabout and take the next left, staying to the left all the time. That lane is not part of the motorway. Has to be the closest you can get to a motorway without being on it. Which makes it even more weird. It's also quite a challenging gradient coming off, part of the Great North Run route one year (when South Tyneside didn't want runners coming through due to their covid regulations).
Try cycling on the A27 south of Havant. 4 lanes each side with a hard shoulder. I did it back in the 80s. Never again!
@@rogink I did it in the 90s it wasn't any better. I was cycling from Brighton to Shaftesbury (as you do) and several drivers beeped me on that section of road because they thought I was on the motorway!
Always a fan of Newcastle!
Thanks a lot mate, appreciate it :)
Week by week
Month by month
Year by year
Jon make life a little better.
Honesty and humility
Laughter and insight
What a blessing Jon is to so many
Bless you mate x
I've always found the Newcastle area traffic a pain to get caught in. I've memories of driving and of the approach lanes and turn offs being very sudden and catching me unawares. I think this was on the A 1058. When I was there with a bicycle, it was from quite another perspective as I had to cross the A167(M) at Jesmond which at one time must have been rather posh. It reminded me of Glasgow where the M8 cuts through Sauchiehall Street and disects the town. It's all concrete brutalism at its finest.
I think that was the maddest bits of road you’ve reported on Jon?! Crazy. They were definitely on shrooms back then lol
At the top of the A167M is one of very few motorways which has
a slip road joining in the fast lane
Its chaos and dangerous
yep, I used to negotiate this frequently. Coming North out of Newcastle on the Great North Road, if you want to get east on the A1058 coast road, you have to join in the fast lane, in the darkness of the lower deck, with limited visibility due to traffic approaching around a bend. Then you need to cross from lane 3 to 1 in a short distance, whist traffic is trying to join from the left side slip road too. Bonkers!
@@shm5547 Have done this myself many times over the years , yet to see an accident there, though I have needed the brown pants a few times
I've known and used this odd little motorway for years. (With the nearby roundabout that goes under buildings, or alternatively has buildings built over it.)
One minor point - I'm surprised you weren't told, as you visited! - there's no such place as NewcARstle. It's Newcăstle, man! (Geordie term of endearment.)
Love the late-80s outro, seems so fitting for Newcastle somehow..
I live in Newcastle and I still find myself stunned that nobody seems to crash on the A167(M) and its insane junctions. The Great North Road/Coast Road junctions (they’re right next to each other) are a “just go and pray” moment. Then a sharp right bank before the A193 junction where you can easily crash into the side wall if you’re not careful when changing lanes (to avoid the lunacy of the junction). That junction goes immediately into the 55° North junction, which has no lane markings for 3 lanes of traffic to the roundabout.
It’s a true marvel of the most idiotic design you could possibly imagine!
That car park looks brilliant. Form and function! Love it❤
Love the architecture note at the end. Great video as always!
Thanks, Jon. That curved brickwork has interesting lines. Biggest point here was about the Metro - which is very welcome, and I'm glad we are not always slaves to the motorway.
There's another, almost as stupid, entrance/exit - if you come onto the A167M heading north from the Jesmond road junction (A1058), the entry sliproad has two lanes. A common route from the left lane is to then have to cut right across the A167M (who can't see you prior to the merge) to immediately take a sharply curved low speed exit back down the Great North Road. Local legend has it that the whole complex was specifically designed to be *equally dangerous* if it was ever converted to left hand drive.
Ah brilliant I was waiting for this one. It really is a mess, and you have to be fearless when coming from the west along the A167M to join the A1058 under the double decker section.
When you eventually run out of motorways it would be cool if you did a video on the A55 AKA the North Wales Expressway, there's loads of cool oddities to and around it plus it actually has a number of motorway class/regulation sections on it though they aren't numbered A55(M), for reasons.
Has he done the wonderful M56 yet leading to the wonderful A55? I can't remember.
@@antonycharnock2993 I thought he did all the M-something motorways before starting on the A-something(M) roads.
I love the explanation of the f(honk)ing stupid closed slip road at Camden St..! As an ex-pat Brit living in the north east of America, all the motorway junctions are like that! The "clover leaf" design they like here was probably cheaper than the slip road & roundabout model we use in the UK as they only need to build one bridge not two, but there's the entry & exit crossover every time and at least around here, on very short slip roads.
If you want an overseas special edition of Auto Shenanigans, look at the history and planned revision of the I93/I95 interchange north of Boston or the canceled I695 inner belt in Boston and the knock on effects of that on the traffic all around. Puts the M25 to shame!
Loved it. Hope to see more around tyne side and the North East. You Legend.
Ah my home town/city and yes the A167m is beautifully nuts, but it kinda works.
That motorway is just across the town moor from me, I think the worst bit is where it merges from Great North Road "underground".
Come to York and do a video on our abandoned inner ring road scheme that would have decimated great swathes of the historic streets and buildings. I have all of the plans and drawings.
Almost spat my tea out when you said about Biker Grove
Wicked, Sweet, Awesome 👍
I just knew in my heart that the Byker Grove tune was coming! :)
Yes Jon! The moment I’ve been waiting for, what a time to be alive!!!!
Nearly die merging on this beauty at least 5 times per week …
Splendid.That closed slip road was bloody handy for nipping through the traffic to get to the A1058 though!
Thanks Jon. Its a complete horlicks. I drove along a large part of it earlier this year (I may have mentioned it on one of your previous vids) and I concur with your analysis that the planners must have spent the weekend on shrooms. A more bonkers bit of incomplete construction thats still in use will be hard to find.
But don't let it Bovril you
The Evening Chronicle described this motorway as three miles of motorway in one mile. It's completely mad, there's no way it's built to motorway standard. One of the few roads where you join from the right instead of the left. We have one in Peterborough (just) but I don't know of any others.
They’ve probably only kept it designated as a motorway because it would be a nightmare with all those farm vehicles, cyclists and horses. 🤣
M8 in Glasgow
@@acciid also a complete f'ing nightmare!
Thanks Jon, for another exciting episode of Secrets of the Motorway, some light relief after what I've been up to this week.
What have you been up to ? Do tell us 😁
I work in education so Secrets of the Motorway is the only thing between me and a fatal dose of drain cleaner.
Ooh! Byker!
Fantastic and brutally stunning piece of motorway. Was fascinated by it when i started travelling to Newcastle, got to know it better when my son went to Northumbria Uni and it still captures my imagination to this day. That curved carpark is the icing on the cake when you're heading south to the Tyne bridge 👍
You forgot to mention skybridge walkways which was partly built in that project and was abandoned part built as well. Nice to see you oot & aboot in the toon 😂
I'm on this most weeks and it really is bonkers. You drive down towards the city centre and into the underground bit, there's a slip road which joins as a third lane on the right (do many UK motorways have a slip road joining on the right?!) at the same time as this there's the crazy merge from Jesmond from the left. It's a mess of a bad and dangerous design.
Another very good video. Edited down to a densely informative few minutes, there's no padding in the videos on this channel.
One of the best yet mate, I love these inner-city motorways… Particularly the 60s brutalist concrete sledgehammers. So much more interesting to view and drive than endless M1 and M6 mid-section monotony. That closed slip has come up quite a lot lately on Ghost Slip Roads and Roads to nowhere on Facebook. I think the gates give it a lovely post-apocalyptic feel
Nice Jon 👍🌟Merry Christmas 🎄🎅🏻to you and family . Merry Christmas 🎄🎅🏻to everyone else watching Jon’s videos.
And you, Mark. 🙂
Thanks for a wonderful video.
The big claim to fame of the road must surely be its use as the start of The Great North Run.
Lovely acoustics in the tunnels for anyone shouting “Uggi! Uggi! Uggi”
Genius. These get better every week 👍👍
They had already done some prep work for making the A1058 a motorway. They moved a lot of the graves at the north end of Jesmond Old Cemetery, expecting to widen the road. Since it never happened there's now a strangely empty area of a Victorian cemetery where the rest of the graves are closely packed together.
Not that they'd have easily been able to go ahead with the road widening, because that would have meant knocking down or relocating the Grade 2 listed gate lodge and archway, designed by John Dobson, Newcastle's famous architect. And that would definitely have been a big sticking point.
What you didn't mention Jon, on your video, about the Metro, was that the route of the Metro, from East of Manors Metro Station (I say that as there's a separate, but close Manors BR station), to a point east of Byker station, in a tunnel, was originally going to be one of these motorways you spoke about. The Metro, after Manors, would've took up two of the four tracks of the BR alignment until branching off onto the coastal loop, at Chillingham Road. When the motorway plan was shelved, the Metro took up that motorway route instead, and a new Byker station was opened, and the route went in tunnel for a few hundred metres, before turning left, and then right, to reach Chillingham Road. The advantage for the Metro was, it was much better located for Byker residents, than would've been the case if Metro had used the original plan, and served Heaton station. Heaton closed in 1978, and in 1982 Byker opened on the Metro.
A railway using a route originally planned for a Motorway. You don't hear that too often!
I don't suppose you could point me at any sources for what the original plans were for the Shields Road motorway? the byker -chilli road tunnel as a motorway certainly makes sense at the byker end, but i'm really curious about what they expected to connect to at the other end - also how it was going to get over ouseburn, was the byker viaduct planned as part of the city motorways too?
@amytysoe2292 I only remember years ago, reading in a magazine, an article on the metro, mentioning that, but no other details.
I live in Heaton and I've always wondered why half of byker station goes into a tunnel (the side going towards Chillingham Road) this probably explains it
5:50 - I did wonder if you were going to get to Byker Grove - and you did! Don't bother with the Baltic Exchange, the Gateshead Glasshouse or Grey's Monument :D
"A night on shrooms" is the only way that 1960s plans for Newcastle made sense, but sadly I suspect the planners were sober as a judge. The plans actually went far beyond just a network of city centre motorways, the plan was for a total rebuild of the city centre. Essentially, the plan was to dedicate all the ground in the city centre to cars and buses while the shops and everything were to be relocated to a "first floor" (or second floor if you're reading this from the U.S. with the "ground floor" being the Lobby) network of elevated pedestrian walkways connecting building-to-building, where shops, plazas etc. would be integrated into new buildings one storey above the ground. Some of it actually got built, for example there is a pedestrian skywalk connecting Newcastle library with Manors, via Bewick Court, Hadrian House and the old New Bridge Hotel. That section also has a branch skywalk that connects to Northumbria University at Ellison Place. And another section of pedestrian skywalk connecting Manors with Carliol Square, that used to actually go to Swan Hill Roundabout and connect with pedestrian tunnels connecting onwards to Pilgrim St. and the Holy Jesus hospital site. Sadly, the shorter pedway no longer connects directly from Manors to the Swan Hill junction because of the demolition of some of the buildings that used to carry the pedway there, such as the former Bank of England building on Carliol Square. As such, you now have to walk down 3 flights of stairs to get into a dip where you have to walk back uphill to continue further anywhere really.
Some of the shops in the sky were built and are still in use today, for example there is a hookah lounge and I think a tattoo parlour above Princess Square, and snooker hall in Hadrian House. But beyond that, the concept did not take off and the few premises that used the section in between the New Bridge Hotel and the car park have long since been abandoned, making that section just a really weird and creepy section of pedway to walk through. But the worst part is by far a staircase that connects Higham Place with Hadrian House, a dark and creepy hellhole that's when I used it once (just out of morbid curiousity) was full of vomit, urine and broken glass. That staircase at least, you would have to be on shrooms to think that anyone would actually want to use it.
Loved Byker Grove back when I was young.
What a lovely car park
I've heard rumour that the road was laid out with driving on the right in mind after we joined the common market. As a regular user of the road, this makes sense to a degree. The Camden St ramp did indeed tighten one's balloon knot when it was in use.
nah that's a common misconception mate, even if you flip the side you drive on, it wouldn't have an affect on a roads design, there were just some pretty mental plans to have slip roads everywhere
@@SoupMagoosh I don't think you're right about slip roads. Surely on a well designed motorway the on slips roads will be longer to allow more space for acceleration?
This is the beauty of CZcams and long may there be space for legendary characters like Jon!
Best ending monologue so far hopefully gets you noticed by “Ant & Dec”😂
The BIKER GROVE Youth club, that brings back memories of the 90's, I Remember watching on TV & it also Starred a Young ANT & DEC...
Byker.
Never thought id see my old uni accommodation on a youtube video! Big up Glenamara house!
Yay, been waiting for this one
The bypass Road would have met up with the Gateshead flyover. You can see the alignment when you're on the flyover.
Almost glad they didn't go ahead with that one specifically as it would have towered over the Tyne Bridge and blocked the iconic view
Nice to see it's not just my council that has been ingesting forest plants...
I've been doing Spuggy's laugh for years but no one understands what it is anymore, haha haha hahaaa.
I keep watching, waiting for "...unfortunately, no exciting episode this week because I've run out of motorways. Bye bye." 😄
He'll do the long distance A-roads. A3, A4, A38, A49....😅
I loved this video so much I watched it twice! Byker Byker Byker Grove, yeah! Have a great week!
Byker byker byker grove!!!! If it hadn't been such good drama, we may never would have had Ant and Dec! 😂
Alternatively I always thought a motorway directly from the A1 into the city centre of Newcastle, with no junction numbers, sporadic signs that give you upto 50 yards to cross 3 carriageways, and an end point of being slapbang in the middle of nowhere youd really want to go unless you lived there, was an excellent thing to use council time and funds on.
Drove through there (southbound) for the first time a few years back, felt like I'd gone down a one of those crazy pool slides by the time I was dumped out on the Tyne bridge.
Another wicked sweet awesome video. Thanks Jon
God, I thought some of your other videos in this series in other urban areas are bad but this is just bonkers!!!