M61 motorway

The M61 is a motorway in North West England linking Manchester and Preston. It runs from the A580 near Wardley northwest past Bolton, Horwich and Chorley to join the M6 near Bamber Bridge. The motorway runs parallel to the A6 for its entire length, bypassing towns and villages along that route. A single service station, Rivington services, stands between junctions six and eight. The motorway’s most notable feature is the Worsley Braided Interchange at its south-eastern end. The Worsley Braided Interchange holds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. It has seventeen traffic lanes spread across eight almost-parallel carriageways in a basketweave design. The interchange links the M61 to the A666, A6053, M60 and A580. Local people first called it Spaghetti Junction seventeen months before Birmingham’s Gravelly Hill Interchange received that name. The interchange uses tunnel-like structures to avoid skew bridges and spread the load. The M61 crosses the Lancaster Canal three times between junctions eight and nine. The Ministry of Transport and British Waterways Board decided to close the southern section of the canal rather than build three bridges. Part of the closed section remains as a spur of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The motorway’s history includes the opening of the Horwich to Worsley section in December 1970 at a cost of £12.4 million.