Birmingham!!

[gavroche]

I really feel sorry for anybody who lives in Birmingham! Coming home from Devon last night, we left Bideford at 4.15pm, hoping for an easy journey back. Apart from a slight delay in Bristol, everything was fine until we hit Birmingham!! The M6 was closed from junction 10 to 11 and the tail back was tremendous. We covered 3 miles in 1h45!! Then we had take a diversion that was badly signposted. I was absolutely fuming in the car.. A journey that should have taken 6 hours took us 9 hours so we arrived home at 1am.As I was overtired by then, it took me ages to go to sleep and I am still tired today.
Birmingham, you are sh****hole!! I am not blaming the people there but just its road structure. Rant over.

 

[AndyRM]

I used to think Birmingham was a bit of a midden, but then friends showed me the city properly. It's a great place, particularly the canals.

I'm not sure that driving past a place on a motorway is necessarily the best way to experience it.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Yeah - the M5/M6 experience is totally cr&p usually. It's being made worse by "upgrading" the M5 to a "smart" motorway at the moment. TBH last time I had to go that way I put myself and my bike on the train. Just wait till Bank Holiday next week

 

[PhilDawson8270]

I'm not sure that driving past a place on a motorway is necessarily the best way to experience it.

Oh no. Driving through Birmingham by a motorway is certainly the best way to to do it

 

[robjh]

I really feel sorry for anybody who lives in Birmingham! Coming home from Devon last night, we left Bideford at 4.15pm, hoping for an easy journey back. Apart from a slight delay in Bristol, everything was fine until we hit Birmingham!! The M6 was closed from junction 10 to 11 and the tail back was tremendous. We covered 3 miles in 1h45!! Then we had take a diversion that was badly signposted. I was absolutely fuming in the car.. A journey that should have taken 6 hours took us 9 hours so we arrived home at 1am.As I was overtired by then, it took me ages to go to sleep and I am still tired today.
Birmingham, you are sh****hole!! I am not blaming the people there but just its road structure. Rant over.

You're not really commenting on Birmingham but the motorways running past it. That's national infrastructure and hardly poor old Birmingham's fault.
Birmingham's OK - it has good and bad but is certainly no worse than other UK conurbations.

 

[Crackle]

Too cheap to take the toll road. As any fule know, the M6 through Birmingham is a Bermuda triangle of a motorway.

 

[BrumJim]

I've you'd have popped in to see us instead of trying to go past, you would have come to the opinion that it is quite nice, really.

 

[mjr]

Too cheap to take the toll road.

The toll road for rich Laahndaahners popping up to the Lakes that goes nowhere near the M5 used on the Devon-Wales route mentioned in the OP, you mean?

 

[coffeejo]

Meanwhile, some family had someone who didn't get home at all never mind a couple of hours delayed

M6 near Wolverhampton and Walsall reopens after fatal crash - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-37152503

I was going to make a frivolous comment about @gavroche not liking anywhere, but then I read Adrian's post. It's all about context.

 

[John the Monkey]

I am not blaming the people there but just its road structure. Rant over.

Small mercies eh, small mercies.

 

[mjr]

I don't see the word Wales in the OP

Sorry. @gavroche wrote "home" and I looked at the location shown below the username, which I forget isn't visible on mobiles. Anyway, that toll road is basically naff-all use to most journeys past Birmingham, including most of mine to/from the east or south-west. It was a very expensive mistake.

 

[Crackle]

The toll road for rich Laahndaahners popping up to the Lakes that goes nowhere near the M5 used on the Devon-Wales route mentioned in the OP, you mean?

No I mean the M6 toll road. Further but quicker.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Sorry. @gavroche wrote "home" and I looked at the location shown below the username, which I forget isn't visible on mobiles. Anyway, that toll road is basically naff-all use to most journeys past Birmingham, including most of mine to/from the east or south-west. It was a very expensive mistake.

I think it's brilliant - carves off a whole heap of time when we travel from The Lakes to the south coast, sout east and London where we have friends and family.

I thought it was a self-funding project? Might be wrong and I wouldn't know when the break even point is should this be the case.

 

[Crackle]

Loads quicker because, being a private road, you can drive as fast as you like.

Or so people seem to think.

 

[mjr]

I thought it was a self-funding project? Might be wrong and I wouldn't know when the break even point is should this be the case.

It's six years old now, but I can't find similar recent figures: http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/sites/default/files/research-files/M6-Toll-Report-Aug-10.pdf says it was losing about £25m a year, on top of the construction debt of about £500m. Macquarie Atlas Roads bought Midlands Expressway Limited and then later "deconsolidated" it into Peregrine Motorways Limited which has had a big loan from somewhere, but pays MAR a hefty management fee. I suspect you can piece the current annual loss together from the various companies' accounts but it's not immediately obvious to me and I'd like some of my lunch break to eat lunch so I'm not going to spend more time figuring it out.