The M40 Motorway

The M40 motorway runs from the end of the A40 Western Avenue, just outside the boundaries of London at Denham, all the way to the intersection of the M42 motorway that runs across the south of Birmingham.

If you are driving your car on the A40 Western Avenue from London, and towards Birmingham, you can see the M40 motorway ahead as you go through the Swakeley’s intersection at Uxbridge. Junction 1 is at Denham in Buckinghamshire and from this point of the M40 motorway you can access the A40 back to Uxbridge, and the A412, which takes you to Slough through Iver.

As the M40 motorway was built well before the M25 the road builders had to put in an extra motorway intersection to accommodate the M25, and this motorway intersection is junction 1A. From here you can drive your car from the M40 and onto the M25 motorway in either a northbound or a southbound direction, but you can’t go back to Uxbridge.

The Market Town of Beaconsfield

Junction 2 of the M40 is situated on the outskirts of the market town of Beaconsfield, which is in Buckinghamshire. There are two sections to Beaconsfield and these are referred to locally to Beaconsfield Old Town and Beaconsfield New Town. The Old Town is nearest to the M40 motorway.

From the motorway intersection of the M25 the motorway expands from three lanes to four to carry the additional volume of vehicles during peak traffic flow times.

Not far from Beaconsfield there is the town of High Wycombe and there are two motorway intersections for High Wycombe on the M40 motorway. When driving your car towards Birmingham you will arrive that the junction 3 motorway intersection, but this is only half a junction.

You can drive off the M40 motorway at this point, and you can pass underneath so as to go back to Denham and Uxbridge on the motorway. However, there is no entry point to get onto the M40 from junction 3 to go to Birmingham. If you are coming from Birmingham you cannot leave the M40 motorway at junction 3 either.

Handy Cross Roundabout Can be a Nighmare For Traffic Delays

Junction 4 is very busy part of the M40 and this is the main motorway intersection for High Wycombe, and it is called Handy Cross Roundabout. From here you can access the A404, which is the Marlow by–pass and links the M40 motorway with the M4. There is also a pretty back road from the handy Cross Roundabout into Marlow, the C100.

Marlow in Buckinghamshire is situated on the river Thames and it is as well there is the A404 Marlow by-pass as to have all that traffic going through Marlow town centre would not be sensible.

Handy Cross is a place that is mentioned a lot on the radio traffic news. It is a large roundabout over the top of the M40 motorway and each junction is controlled by traffic lights. When these traffic lights go wrong there is chaos as Handy Cross Roundabout becomes grid locked.

Before the extension to the M40 motorway was built from Wheatley to the M42 motorway at Birmingham the section between Handy Cross Roundabout at High Wycombe used to be two lanes as far as Stokenchruch. Now there is a lot more traffic on this motorway the road has been made to three lanes.

The M40 motorway runs through three counties, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, but it is the section from Junction 5 at Stokenchurch and Junction 6 at Lewknor, where the motorway passes through the chalk canyon, the people with road phobia are likely to experience a panic attack on the motorway.

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This page was last updated
Saturday, 29-Jan-2011

Handy Cross on The M40 Can Have Bad Traffic Congestion