Nov 2, 2009
Not over the hill: through it
Hot on the heels of the fortieth birthday of the information superhighway, it’s time for another birthday: an actual highway, this time: the M1, which today celebrates 50 years since opening by, presumably, having some sort of jam session, or maybe wearing one of those traffic cones on its head.
Motorway, by Darius Kay. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution/Noncommercial license
I can’t say I feel quite the same levels of personal enthusiasm and excitement about the potential of the motorway as I do about the internet….
(Incidentally, I’d link to the interesting BBC Four series about the cultural and engineering history of motorways, except of course you can’t watch it now. Ah well. Here’s a review instead)
Hm. Why aren’t motorways more appreciated? There seems to be a certain beauty to some American freeways- the vast expanses of sunbleached concrete, the massive, complex junctions, etc- and of course Kraftwerk immortalised the joys of the Autobahn in song, but the British motorway never managed that. Perhaps our psyches are irrevocably fond of railways (especially the old steam versions) and there’s no room left for these more ambiguous newcomers?
The Secret Life series on both motorways and airports were definitely worth watching. I’m still half-hoping for one on post-war railways (see! trains again), but I’m not sure how likely it is to happen.