science

M42 motorway

M42 motorway is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand M42 motorway rather than just read about it. In short: The M42 motorway runs north-east from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire to just south-west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, passing Redditch, Solihull, the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and Tamworth on the way, serving the east of the Birmingham metropolitan area. The section between the M40 and junction 4 of the M6 forms – though unsigned as such – a part of Euroroute E05.

Key takeaways

M42 motorway belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect M42 motorway to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of M42 motorway from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The M42 motorway runs north-east from Bromsgrove in Worcestershire to just south-west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, passing Redditch, Solihull, the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) and Tamworth on the way, serving the east of the Birmingham metropolitan area. The section between the M40 and junction 4 of the M6 forms – though unsigned as such – a part of Euroroute E05. Northwards beyond junction 11, the route is continued as the A42; the junctions on this section, 12–14, are numbered like a continuation of the motorway, but the road has non-motorway status from here.

Planning A new motorway route from the M5 in Worcestershire to the M1 near Nottingham was announced in May 1966 in Nottingham, as a cheaper scheme than to upgrade the A453 piecemeal. The motorway would join the M1 at Lockington in Leicestershire, and to join the M5 at Rashwood in Worcestershire. The motorway would be 54-mile-long (87 km), and was planned by five counties. The A42 would later terminate at Lockington. Firm plans for a new motorway by-passing the south and east of Birmingham, reaching Tamworth and connecting the M5 and M6 motorways, were announced in 1972. The public enquiry for the Bromsgrove section took place in June 1973, also with the proposed Warwick section of the M40. In March 1976, it was decided to reduce the Curdworth to Appleby section from three to two lanes, and to scrap motorway status. Breedon-on-the-Hill wanted the M42 to be built.

Construction

Monkspath to Coleshill The route of the 8-mile (13 km) section was published in March 1971. Construction of this section, began in late February 1975. R M Douglas planned to build the section by early 1977, but it opened three months early on 8 November 1976. It linked Birmingham Airport with the M6 motorway.

Coleshill to Curdworth This is the section from the M6 with the A5 at Tamworth. Construction began in December 1983. Alfred McAlpine built the first six miles to the A5 in concrete. Leonard Fairclough & Son built the section from the A5 to Curdworth in asphalt. Six miles, which cost £40 million, opened, from Coleshill to Polesworth, on 18 December 1985 by Lynda Chalker. The motorway was now 25 miles (40 km). The section from the A5 at Tamworth with the A444 at Measham opened in 1986. The 8-mile (13 km) Polesworth North and South sections were opened on 7 August 1986 by Malcolm Sinclair, 20th Earl of Caithness.

Portway to Monkspath The southern section of the motorway to Alvechurch just north of Redditch to form a junction with the A441, the curve around the south-eastern side of Solihull opened in September 1985 by Nicholas Ridley. The section cost £17 million, from A34 to the A435, being four months late. Construction had started in April 1983.

Lickey End to Portway In 1986, the section to the A38 at Bromsgrove, 15 miles (24 km) south of Birmingham was completed. The section to the A38 at Lickey End, in Worcestershire, opened on 5 June 1986, from the A435 to A38, with a cavalcade of vintage buses.

Catshill to Lickey End In December 1981, the additional section through the Lickey Hills was cancelled. In 1987, the motorway was completed with the opening of the link from the M5. The section, which cost £43 millionm, was opened on 19 March 1987 by the Transport Secretary John Moore. This completed the Catshill to Monkspath section.

History A planned section north of the M6 running to the M1 near Nottingham was never constructed as planned being replaced by the A42 link, a trunk road which was completed in August 1989 to link with the M1 motorway near Nottingham. The A42 is built to a similar standard to the M42, being a grade separated dual carriageway. The 6-mile (9.7 km) Measham and Ashby-de-la-Zouch bypass section was opened in August 1989 at a cost of £33m. The original planned line of the M42 saw it joining the M1 further to the north, crossing what is now the A50 Derby Southern Bypass and meeting the M1 north of Bardills Island (A52/M1 interchange). When first built, there was no direct connection between the M5 South and M42. Westbound M42 traffic similarly had no direct connection to the M5 North. Instead traffic had to use the A38 between M5 junction 4 and M42 junction 1.

Operational history Junction 3a was remodelled to give priority to traffic operating between the now westbound section of the M42 and the extended M40 motorway, which opened in stages between December 1989 and January 1991. The section of the M42 between junctions 7A and 9 was re-built as part of the M6 Toll works and now forms the link between the M6 and the southern end of the toll road. The M6 Toll opened in 2003. Active Traffic Management with hard shoulder running and variable speed limits were introduced in 2006. Since the 1990s, there have been constant plans to build a new service station on the motorway south of Birmingham Airport and the NEC, but this has yet to be built. In 2019 Solihull Planning Committee rejected two plans to build a new service station near junction 4 or next to junction 5. However, in 2022 the Planning Inspector approved plans to allow the plans to proceed at the junction 5 scheme, subject to the road being a full ALM Smart Motorway which is currently not on plan to take place due to the cancellation of new Smart Motorways in 2023. The route passes No Man's Heath, Warwickshire; next door is Mercia Park, next to the end of M42, in Stretton en le Field. It was 17 miles from the M6 to the Leicestershire terminus.

History of the road number The current road is the second incarnation of the A42. The original (1923) route was Reading to Birmingham via Oxford. The whole road was renumbered in 1935 – the section from Reading to Shillingford became part of the A329, Shillingford to Oxford became part of the A423 and Oxford to Birmingham became part of the A34. In 1993 the A423 was itself renumbered, with the section formerly the A42 becoming part of the A4074 from Reading to Oxford. The modern M42 does interchange with the former A42 at junction 4 near Solihull: Stratford Road now being numbered A34 to the north of the junction and A3400 to the south.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with M42 motorway

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what M42 motorway claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to M42 motorway before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about M42 motorway ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of M42 motorway

In research: M42 motorway appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses M42 motorway in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: M42 motorway is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Motorways in England, Roads in Warwickshire, Roads in Worcestershire, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for M42 motorway outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study M42 motorway in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what M42 motorway means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain M42 motorway out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is M42 motorway in simple terms?

Why does M42 motorway matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study M42 motorway?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on M42 motorway.