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Birmingham Road Improvements Over The Years.

oldMohawk

gone but not forgotten
We often lament about nice distinguished old buildings being replaced with concrete and glass monstrosities, but recently looking at photos of the building of the 'Erdington By-Pass' (Sutton New Road) started in 1938, made me think about the road improvements I saw in my younger days and how they affected my travel around Brum.

I never really noticed the Erdington by-pass, it was there before I had my own transport, and I did not often travel that way by bus. Was it the first 'by-pass' road scheme in Birmingham?

The road improvement work that affected me most was along Birchfield Rd starting with the Perry Barr Underpass. I drove my motor scooter through it on the first night it opened in 1962. It was built because traffic jams in Perry Barr in the 1950s were horrendous with merging and crossing traffic at the Walsall Rd and Aldridge Rd junction and also at the Birchfield Rd/Aston Lane crossing with traffic lights. Before 1953 the No 6 tram terminus was in the middle of the road.

Further towards the city was the Trinity Road junction with some traffic wanting to turn right into Heathfield Road and a flyover here was not completed until 1971

After Trinity Rd, Six Ways lay ahead where great care was needed and it could be a major bottleneck during rush hours. I don't remember any traffic lights so it was everyone for themselves with several bus routes passing through and up until 1953 the No 5 tram route crossing the No 6 route. I remember as a youngster riding my bike across there looking for traffic from all directions while keeping my front wheel out of tramlines.

By the time I bought my first car in 1964, I could whizz almost non stop towards town, although I had to wait until the Trinity Rd flyover was completed in 1971. I thought it was all brilliant not realising that the old shopping areas in Perry Barr and Newtown Row had been killed off. I have some posts on the BHF wistfully recalling the old shops but I suppose the changes were inevitable because the old roads barely coped with traffic in the 1950s and 1960s.

I don't seem to have noticed the building of other major roadworks although I must have been caught in the traffic jams they caused and I certainly used the finished projects!

Lots of pics of the traffic jams and road works in the Birchfield Rd area can be found on the forum.
 
Thanks for that photo. The Walsall Rd was always intended to be a dual carriageway and I suppose the 1939 bridge work may have been a start to convert it but WW2 got in the way. I remember driving along the road in the 1960s and it was still a single carriageway with the houses on the west side having a wide patch of land in front with hawthorn bushes along the road. A forum photo below from the Christ-Church-Perry-Barr thread shows an aerial view dated 1937 before the bridge work started.
In the photo, the bridge is just above the left end of the track.
PerryBarr1937.jpg
 
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That's an interesting 1939 view of what the Walsall Rd would look like when finished. The image below shows what it eventually looked like but it was the late 1960s before work started and was finished. As mentioned in the 1939 article some trees were planted on the central reservation but the pedestrian 'subways' caused problems with some houses having to be demolished to make way for walkway ramps. Replacement houses were built set back from the road as can be seen in the left of the image but not many people used the subways and they have probably been filled in.
WalsallRd_iOS (Small).jpg
 
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That's an interesting 1939 view of what the Walsall Rd would look like when finished. The image below shows what it eventually looked like but it was the late 1960s before work started and was finished. As mentioned in the 1939 article some trees were planted on the central reservation but the pedestrian 'subways' caused problems with some houses having to be demolished to make way for walkway ramps. Replacement houses were built set back from the road as can be seen in the left of the image but not many people used the subways and they have probably been filled in.
View attachment 108337
I certainly don't recollect any work starting on the Duelling of the Walsall road before the early seventies. I left home in September 1970 from off Perry avenue and still visited my Mother, who moved to Rowood drive Solihull, well into the early seventies.
 
My brother demolished part of the brickwork while the builders were still working on one of the underpasses on the Birchfield Road, he got clipped by another car and flipped his Wolseley on its side, he was unhurt fortunately.
I think he was about 17 or 18 at the time so around 1957/8 but don't depend too much on my memory, I don't know if it made the newspapers at the time.
 
My brother demolished part of the brickwork while the builders were still working on one of the underpasses on the Birchfield Road, he got clipped by another car and flipped his Wolseley on its side, he was unhurt fortunately.
I think he was about 17 or 18 at the time so around 1957/8 but don't depend too much on my memory, I don't know if it made the newspapers at the time.
The Perry Barr underpass opened in 1962 as per previous post but it was a long time before the wallsall road widening started.
 
I last remember driving on the Walsall Rd in 1967. I used to drive up Beeches Rd and needed to travel along Walsall Rd to turn right at Rocky Lane. Some time after 1968 I did not need to drive on the road and maybe the road was converted to dual later in the early 1970s ... I have had a go on Google to find the exact date but no results.
My early memories of the underpass below ...
Hi Big Gee,
Yes I remember the timber yard - I think it was called Ansells.
I also remember the opening of the Perry Barr underpass. I was at night school at Aston Technical College, and deliberately drove home that way so I could 'try' the underpass. I think it had heating under the road surface for frosty weather, but did not last long, and I think the underpass spoilt Perry Barr, except for motorists.
oldmohawk.
The incline on the northern side was steep because it had to go over the railway.
 
Interesting pic. I can see the Clifton Cinema centre right but the island shown at the Beeches Rd junction never appeared when the work was eventually carried out, it remained with traffic lights. The Tame Valley canal can be seen in the pic.
 
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