A601(M) motorway

The A601(M) is a two-way spur of the M6 in Lancashire. Despite its mortorway classification, it is a small road, the southern half being single carriageway. It holds the ignomy of being the only motorway in the United Kingdom to both terminate with a give-way sign, and on a B road.

The northern half was originally the terminus of the M6. When the M6 was extended, this section was left out from the motorway as it took the road too near to the town of Carnforth. It was also part of planned Arnside link road, that would have connected the Furness peninsula with the M6. This was scrapped for environmental reasons, but parts of it exist today along the A590.

A few years later, to stop traffic going to Over Kellet Quaries and Kirkby Lonsdale using this spur and then passing through local villages, the A601(M) was extended south as a single carriageway road and given its number.

Interstingly the A601(M) is not the A601 under motorway restrictions, as is the usual explanation for such a classification in the U.K.. The A601 itself is the Derby inner ring road - over 100 miles (160 km) away.

The junction with the A6 is still numbered 35a, a remainder from when it was part of the M6.

Junctions

From west to east:

• Road starts on (Junction 35a): A6 (near Carnforth)
• Junction 1: motorway
• Road terminates on: B6254 (between Carnforth and Kirby Lonsdale)

Trivia

• One of three motorways to have a single carriageway section; this, the motorway and the motorway.
• One of three different motorways that have a roundabout in the middle, without a flyover or underpass; this, the motorway and the motorway.

See also

• List of motorways in the United Kingdom

• CBRD Motorway Database
• This motorway's entry on Pathetic Motorways