M55 motorway M55 motorway The M55 is a motorway in Lancashire, England, which can also be referred to as the "Preston Northern Bypass". It connects the seaside resort of Blackpool to the M6 at Preston. It is 12.2 miles (19.6 km) in length. The M55 has three lanes in both directions for most of its length. After leaving the M6 at junction 32, the road immediately interchanges with the A6. It then crosses the West Coast Main Line and Lancaster Canal before passing north of Wesham to meet the A585 at junction 3. It then continues west in a rural setting to
M6 motorway to the edge of the Lake District with a short stretch within the national park boundaries and then passes Carlisle on its way to Gretna, before the motorway becomes the A74(M) a few hundred metres (yards) short of the Scottish border. The first section of the motorway and the first motorway in the country was the Preston By-pass. It was built by Tarmac Construction and opened by the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on 5 December 1958. In January 1959 the Preston by-pass was closed because of rapid surface deterioration over a stretch of "due to water freezing and then thawing".