00:00It's one of the most famous road junctions in Britain and one of Birmingham's most recognisable landmarks.
00:07Spaghetti Junction is the nickname, but its official name is the Gravely Hill Interchange.
00:13It sits at Junction 6 of the M6 where the motorway meets the Aston Expressway and also several local roads
00:20in North Birmingham.
00:22Now when it opened in May 1972, it was designed to solve a very modern problem.
00:27How to move traffic through the Midlands without sending everything through ordinary city streets.
00:34The result was a vast free-flowing interchange built on different levels with slip roads bending above canals, railway lines,
00:43rivers and local roads.
00:45It was an extraordinary piece of engineering for its time and it changed this part of the city for good.
00:50The area below was already crowded with transport routes.
00:54The River Thame, the River Ray, Hockley Brook, railway lines and canals all met around Gravely Hill and Salford.
01:01Engineers had to thread the motorway through all of that while keeping key routes moving.
01:07Homes, businesses and old industrial land were cleared as Birmingham pushed ahead with post-war plans.
01:14To some people it symbolised progress, to others it showed how brutally new roads could cut through older neighbourhoods.
01:22Its nickname came before it even opened.
01:25In the 1960s Birmingham newspaper journalists looked at the plans and compared the tangle of roads to a plate of
01:31spaghetti.
01:32And that name stuck.
01:33So today Spaghetti Junction is known far beyond the Midlands even by people who have never driven over it.
01:39National Highway says the structure was originally designed for around 70,000 vehicles per day.
01:46The number using it today is far higher with more than 200,000 vehicles a day travelling through the area,
01:53including tens of thousands of lorries and vans.
01:57That's why the junction remains so important.
01:59It links local Birmingham traffic with national motorway journeys, freight routes, commuters and visitors heading into the city.
02:07Keeping it working is a constant job.
02:09The concrete, steelwork, joints and drainage all need inspection and repair.
02:14And in recent years engineers have had to re-waterproof parts of the structure and carry out concrete repairs in
02:20small sections.
02:21Below the flyovers there's another Birmingham story as well.
02:25There are towpaths, canals, wildlife, graffiti, hidden spaces and walking routes under the constant motorway traffic noise.
02:33It's a place where different layers of the city meet.
02:36Industrial history, Victorian waterways, railway lines, motorway engineering and everyday journeys.
02:43Spaghetti Junction may have been built for cars and lorries, but it's become part of Birmingham's identity.
02:49Loved, mocked, repaired and relied upon.
02:51It's still doing what it was built to do, keeping the Midlands moving, one bend, one bridge and one slip
02:58road at a time.
02:59But then we stand once again.
02:59This will be in its home position and a little bit where I spent 14 mm for sale and 15
02:59mm for sale.
02:59I try and see what we're up and this will be here today.
03:00This is avenant part where we put back on their pipe surface.
03:00You can actually see what we wanted here today.
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