History
The M48 was opened as part of the M4 in 1966. Before this date traffic between South West England and South Wales was either taken through on a motorail service through the Severn Tunnel, used the Aust Ferry (which was unsuitable for large goods vehicles) or travelled through Gloucester to pass north of the Severn Estuary.
After opening the route became increasingly busy so, in 1984, a report was commissioned into a Second Severn Crossing. After four years of construction this new route was opened in 1996 and the M4 was diverted over the newer bridge. The original stretch of motorway was renumbered as M48 and now shares the traffic between England and Wales.
Read more about this topic: M48 Motorway
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)