Portal:Yorkshire/Selected article/5

The M62 passes Scammonden Water in West Yorkshire.

The M62 motorway is a west–east trans-Pennine motorway in northern England, connecting the cities of Liverpool and Hull. The road also forms part of the unsigned Euroroutes E20 (Shannon to Saint Petersburg) and E22 (Holyhead to Ishim). The road is 107 miles (172 km) long; however, for seven miles (11 km), it shares its route with the M60 motorway around Manchester.

The motorway, which was first proposed in the 1930s, and originally conceived as two separate routes, was built in stages between 1971 and 1976, with construction beginning at Pole Moor and finishing in Tarbock. Adjusted for inflation to 2007, the motorway cost approximately £765 million to build. The motorway is relatively busy, with an average daily traffic flow of 100,000 cars in Yorkshire, and has several areas prone to gridlock, in particular, between Leeds and Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.

The road passes the cities of Salford, Manchester, Bradford and Leeds. Between Liverpool and Manchester, and east of Leeds, the terrain of the road is relatively flat, while between Manchester and Leeds, the road crosses the hilly Pennines to its highest point on Saddleworth Moor, which is also the highest point of any motorway in the United Kingdom, at 1,221 feet (372 m) above sea level. (read more . . . )