M32 motorway B4469 providing access to Horfield. Midway through, a speed limit begins. The motorway continues further south and ends just beyond junction 3, north of St Paul's. A dual carriageway continues as the A4032 into the centre of Bristol, with a speed limit. The M32 is a trunk road, therefore its maintenance and upkeep is paid for by Highways England, the national roads authority. Most of the road has two lanes in each direction, though an extended sliproad north of junction 2 provides a climbing lane, and the short section between junction 1 and the M4 has three lanes both ways.
M32 motorway opened by the Secretary of State for Transport, John Peyton in July 1970. The total cost was £3 million (now £ million). In 1972, a polystyrene storage depot on Muller Road near junction 2 caught fire, leading to the closure of the southbound M32 for six days. The third section was the most technically demanding, as it ran through heavily built-up urban areas and required numerous properties to be demolished, along with the "Thirteen-arch viaduct" near Stapleton Road that was built in 1874. Work was delayed owing to the Three-Day Week industrial action in 1974, and further because of a