Very first grid road in Milton Keynes was built 50 years ago today

The first stretch to be built was on the V2, Millers Way, at the point where it connects with the now V4 Watling Street - then the old A5.

The Mayor of MK Andrew Geary visited the spot today with several former employees of the former Milton Keynes Development Corproation, which came up with the idea for the American-style system.

Cllr Geary said: "Our grid roads were designed to be, and have indeed become, one of the unique selling points of Milton Keynes and continue to be one of the city areas greatest assets allowing relatively free flowing traffic."

He added: "Although at certain times there is now some congestion, they still give MK a much greater free flow than almost any other large town or city in the UK and they are something of which we should be hugely proud.

"We have so much to grateful for to the founding fathers and designers of Milton Keynes."

The grid system was made made up of 11 roads aligned roughly north-south and 10 aligned roughly east-west.

In early planning documents, these were simply designated as "V roads" and "H roads", with V standing for vertical and H for horizontal.

V-roads are named as 'Streets', such as Marlborough Street (V8) and and H-roads as 'Ways', such as Standing Way (H6).

The roads are not perfectly straight or aligned, and there are several places where two H roads or two V roads, meet at a junction.

The districts enclosed by the grid roads are known as grid squares

MK's road system is unique in the United Kingdom for its innovative use of street hierarchy principles, with the grid roads run in between districts rather than through them.

These means there can be higher speed limits because buildings are not close to the roads. However, more recently some of the grid roads have been changed to 40mph for safety reasons.

The grid road system also discourages traffic from travelling through housing areas, thus reducing traffic noise and pollution in pedestrian zones.

Cars are segregated from pedestrians and cyclists traffic by the alternative Milton Keynes redway system.

All grid junctions are roundabouts, and the absence of traffic lights on the majority of the roads enables free and efficient movement of traffic compared to other cities.

Milton Keynes has 130 roundabouts but the number is growing all the time.