M57 motorway

The M57 motorway, also known as the Liverpool Outer Ring Road, is a road in England. Designed as a Ring road for Liverpool, it is 10 miles (16 km) long and links various towns east of the city, as well as the M62 and M58 motorways.

M57
Route information
Length10 mi (16 km)
Existed1972–present
HistoryConstructed 1972–1974
Major junctions
South endHuyton
 
North endSwitch Island
Aintree
Location
Primary
destinations		Liverpool
Road network
← M56M58 →
Motorways of Liverpool City Region
View of the M57 northwards from the bridge on Knowsley Lane. On the left can be seen the three tower blocks of Stockbridge Village.

Route

Starting at the Tarbock Interchange in Tarbock, at the end of the A5300, the motorway heads north to the east of Huyton and west of Prescot and crosses the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. It then runs across the north east of Huyton before running west of Knowsley Village. After meeting the A580 at a split junction (numbered 4 & 5), it continues north west between Fazakerley and Kirkby, passes under the Kirkby and Ormskirk branches of the Merseyrail Northern Line before ending on Switch Island near Aintree. The motorway provides one of the main access routes to Aintree Racecourse.

History

The M57 was planned to be a complete bypass of Liverpool, meeting some of the key routes out of the city.[1] As is normal in the United Kingdom, the M57 was to be built in stages. The first two opened were:[2]

  • Junctions 4 to 7 were opened in 1972 as phase 1.
  • Junctions 1 to 4 were opened in 1974 as phase 2.


Phase 1 was proceeded with more rapidly as there had been industrial growth in the area, and it was considered important to improve traffic connections as soon as possible.[3] The original plans for the route anticipated an extension south to the A562.[3]

At Switch Island, the junction was constructed to allow an extension of the M57 towards the A565 near Thornton and the end of the M58 has provision for slip roads to that extension to be constructed.[4] Contemporary maps also showed a proposed southern extension, eventually constructed in the 1990s as the A5300.[5] A new road was opened in August 2015 to join the A565 at Thornton to Switch Island junction at the M57 and M58 motorways respectively; the road was appropriately named the A5758 road.

At the southern end of the M57 where it meets the M62 (Tarbock Island) and also the A5300 southern extension, a £38 million improvement scheme to create a free-flow link with the M62 eastbound was completed on 14 November 2008. At the same junction a free-flow link from the M62 Westbound to the M57 northbound was completed on 12 December.

Junctions
M57 motorway
Northbound exits Junction Southbound exits
Huyton, Liverpool (city centre), Manchester, Warrington, Widnes M62 J1 Road continues as A5300 to Runcorn and Liverpool Airport
Start of motorway Huyton, Liverpool (Central), Manchester, Warrington, Widnes M62
Prescot, St. Helens A57 J2 Prescot A57
No access J3 Huyton A526
St. Helens, Bootle A580 J4 Knowsley, Industrial Estates A580
No access J5 St. Helens A580
Kirkby, Fazakerley A506 J6 Kirkby, Fazakerley A506
Liverpool (city centre)
Southport, Ormskirk A59
Docks, Bootle A5036
Skelmersdale, Wigan, Preston M58		 J7
Switch Island
Terminus		 Start of motorway
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See also

References
  1. Pathetic Motorways – M57
  2. The Motorway Archive – M57 Dates Page Archived 11 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  3. The Motorway Archive – M57 Scheme Page Archived 3 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  4. The Motorway Archive – M58 Archived 25 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Pathetic Motorways – M57 Map

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