Leeds Inner Ring Road

The Leeds Inner Ring Road is part-motorway and part-A roads in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, which forms a ring road around the city centre. It has six different road numbers that are all sections of longer roads. Clockwise, the roads are the A58(M), a motorway section of the A58 road; the A64(M), part of the A64 road; the A61 between York Road and the M621; the M621 between junctions 4 and 2; and the A643 between the M621 and A58. The motorway section is in total is long and is subject to a speed limit throughout.

Route

The motorway section of the ring road forms a semicircle around the north of the city centre. It is classified as a motorway to prohibit certain types of traffic and pedestrians but is not designed to modern motorway standards: it has no hard shoulder and many exits are unsuitable for a true motorway, including a right-side (fast lane) slip road exit. Most of it runs in a concrete-walled cutting, but it goes into a tunnel under the Leeds General Infirmary. The motorway cuts through inner-city neighbourhoods such as Woodhouse, Sheepscar, and Buslingthorpe, forming an important link in the road network by allowing traffic from the A65, A660, A58, A61 and A64 to bypass the city centre.

History

Leeds suffered severe traffic congestion as it was on the main route joining Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford and Hull. In 1955 it was decided to build a dual carriageway to remove through traffic.<ref...
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