The Mancunian Way is a two mile long grade separated elevated motorway in Manchester, England. It is officially made up of the A57(M) and A635(M) motorways, although the latter does not appear on road signs for practical reasons. It is also part of two other roads: the A57 to the west, which runs east–west through Greater Manchester linking the M602 and M67 motorways, and a short section of non-motorway A635 to the east. Part of this non-motorway section collapsed on 14 August 2015 due to a sinkhole. Route The road forms a major part of the ManchesterSalford Inner Ring Road and runs south of the city centre. Running eastbound, it starts as a two-lane dual carriageway and passes underneath the A56. Following this, the road widens to three lanes. At the next junction which leads to the A5103, the road reduces to two lanes and becomes an elevated highway. This section runs atop link roads and two roundabouts before reaching the next junction with the A34. At this point the road passes through the centre of the campuses of UMIST (now part of the University of Manchester) and Manchester Metropolitan University. It then runs for around before reaching its junction with the A6 which it crosses on a bridge before dropping down to ground level. It then finishes on the A635 and continues eastbound, and also continues to be called the Mancunian Way. History Design The Mancunian Way was conceived to form part of the South East Lancashire and North East Cheshire (SELNEC) Highway Plan of 1962, although similar proposals were developed from 1959. A parliamentary bill to authorise the construction of the Mancunian Way was proposed and approved in 1961. During its design it was known as Link Road 17/7. The scheme lies over the geological West Manchester Fault. It would be the first elevated main road to be built outside London, and the UK's second aerial motorway after the Hammersmith flyover. The road is 3,232 ft (985 m) long and has 28 spans of 105 ft (32 m), and two spans of 60 ft (18 m). The spans are made out of precast concrete, with hollow box-units post-tensioned to form a spine beam. Each of the 105 ft spans is made out of 14 precast concrete hollow box-units 7 ft 3in long. Freyssinet (named after Eugène Freyssinet) multi-strand prestressing cables were threaded through ducts in the box sections.