History
The first proposal for a road along this route was agreed in 1958 and it entered the Trunk Road Programme for 1967/1968. Construction began in 1968 and the motorway opened in stages between 1971 and 1981:
- Junctions 1 to 3 opened in 1975.
- Junctions 3 to 7 opened in 1972.
- Junctions 7 to 9 opened in 1974.
- Junctions 9 to 11 opened in 1975.
- Junctions 11 to 14 opened in 1971.
- Junctions 14 to 16 opened in 1981.
Proposals existed for an extension into North Wales across the proposed Dee Barrage, but these have not happened.
Until 2008 the M56 terminated at a roundabout at the west end. Work started in 2006 to grade-separate this junction (and others) to allow free-flowing traffic to North Wales. The project was completed in 2008.
Read more about this topic: M56 Motorway
Famous quotes containing the word history:
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)