HEMEL Hempstead’s prosperity today has much to do with its transport links. It began in the 18th century with the construction of the Grand Union Canal. In the 19th century came the London to Birmingham railway, and in the 20th century the big step was the construction of the M1.
The M1 celebrated its 40th birthday in November 1999 and to make sure the occasion was marked Herts police threw a special party at Junction 10 where the official opening took place.
Traffic on the M1 in the early days
It was on November 2, 1959 that then Transport Minister Ernest Marples 
performed the opening ceremony and made an historic “calling all cars” message (picture right) over a Herts police patrol car radio to remove the barriers at all motorway junctions and allow vehicles on to the brand new road. Until the very last minute workmen with brooms were busy making sure the new carriageways glistened.
The M1 has come a long way since then. For a start, it’s a lot longer. When it opened the motorway ran from Park Street, St Albans, to Dunchurch in Warwickshire - today the end of the M45.
The Park Street to Hemel Hempstead stretch very soon became the M10 when the M1 between Berrygrove (Bushey) and Hemel Hempstead opened the following month.
There were no crash barriers and no lights when the motorway opened and the section between Watford and Hemel Hempstead had only two lanes.
That early M1 - all 55 miles and 134 bridges of it - took just 19 months to build and involved a workforce of 700, rising to 5,000.
The idea of a London to Yorkshire motorway was first put forward in 1945 by the Minister of War Transport.
By the mid 1950s traffic congestion in Hertfordshire on the A5 (10,496 vehicles a day) and the A6 (6,887 vehicles a day) was becoming chaotic and a detailed M1 scheme was put forward in 1955.
Although taking much of the traffic off these A roads, the M1 was still almost deserted by today’s standards.
The distance doesn't change, but it's a long time since the police used minivans.
In the early 1960s it carried 13,000 vehicles a day - this summer the local section peaked at 150,000 vehicles a day.
To go to the second part of the M1 story click below:
