List of Figures ix

Series Editors’ Preface xii

Acknowledgements xiii

1 Introduction: Driving Spaces 1

Mobilities 4

Driving, Space, Social Relations 6

Driving, Landscape, Visuality 12

Geographies of the Modern Road 16

Contents of the Book 20

2 Envisioning British Motorways 23

Motoring and the Motor-Car Way, 1896–1930 24

The German Autobahnen: The Politics and Aesthetics of a Nation’s Roads 31

Motorways for Britain? National Plans, National Defence 38

Motorways, War and Reconstruction 43

Motorways and the British Landscape 46

3 Designing and Landscaping the M1 60

Legislating and Campaigning: Towards a National Motorway Network 61

Locating the M1: Regional Planning, Local Protests and the Authority of the Engineer 67

Landscape Architecture and the Post-war, Modern Road 73

‘A New Look at the English Landscape’: Landscape Architecture, Movement and the Aesthetics of a Modern Motorway 83

Towards a Road Style: Service Areas in the Landscape 90

‘Cutting Holes in the Landscape’: Britain’s Motorway Signs 97

4 Constructing the M1 103

‘Operation Motorway’: Constructing the M1 Motorway 104
Song of a Road: Folk Song, Working-Class Culture and the Labour of a Motorway 124

5 Driving, Consuming and Governing the M 1 141

Motorway Driving, Embodiment, Competence 143

‘Motorway Madness’: Driving, Governing, Expertise 152

Motorway Modern: Consuming the M 1 162

Motorway Service Areas and the Motorist-Consumer 178

Assessing the M1’s Performance: Cost-Benefit Analysis, Scientific Experiments, Accidents 186

6 Motorways and Driving since the 1960s 200

The ‘M1 Corridor’ 202

Motorways and ‘the Environment’ 204

Dystopian and Marginal Landscapes? 208

Placeless Environments? 210

Placing the M1 in the Late Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 213

Appendix: Archival Sources 219
Notes 224
References 246
Index 285

This academic study offers a unique perspective on the production and consumption of spaces of driving. Focusing on the design, construction and use of England’s M1 motorway in the 1950s and 1960s, Peter Merriman traces the social and cultural geographies and histories of the spaces of motorway driving. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with theoretical and empirical work from across the social sciences and humanities. It draws upon extensive archive research and contemporary debates within cultural and historical geography to examine a series of modern spaces which have been largely ignored by scholars in the social sciences and humanities. Merriman covers a wide range of topics, including the envisioning of Britain’s motorways in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, debates about the design, construction, landscaping and consumption of the M1 in the 1950s and 1960s, and changing attitudes to motoring and motorways since the 1960s. The book explores how the motorway was constructed as a modern space by politicians, designers, engineers, and scientists, as well as social commentators and the motoring public.

"This is a terrific analysis of the making of a mobile landscape. It does an excellent job of deciphering the multiple lineaments of fast, smooth motorized passages of, in this case, the making of the UK’s iconic M1."
–John Urry, University of Lancaster

"The M1 has been with us for long enough for us to take it for granted and proceed (along it) as if it had always been there. Consequently it was ripe for just this kind of cultural historical study that reminds us it was once shockingly new, a less than certain enterprise and, ultimately, an astounding (and still evolving) construction in soil, concrete and guttering."
–Eric Laurier, University of Edinburgh