Overrunning overnight roadworks and a subsequent vehicle accident triggered six-mile queues and traffic delays of more than two hours for motorists traveling on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on Thursday, July 9.
National Highways officials reported that the severe gridlock primarily choked the southbound carriageway between junction 21 for Woolston and junction 20 at the Lymm Interchange.
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Maintenance crews failed to clear the area by the scheduled 6 a. m.
deadline, leaving three out of four lanes obstructed past the planned reopening time.
Congestion stacked up rapidly along the Thelwall Viaduct back to junction 21A at the Croft Interchange.
Concurrently, a separate traffic collision partially blocked the northbound lanes between junction 20 and junction 21, forcing authorities to temporarily halt traffic.
The vehicles involved were eventually moved to the hard shoulder, but the incident compounded travel disruption across both directions.
National Highways provided operational updates via social media regarding the emergency repairs and the precise lanes affected by the maintenance delay.
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"The #M6 in #Cheshire southbound between J21A-J21 has lanes 2,3 and 4 (of 4) closed due to roadworks that have over ran their pre-agreed end time of 6am.
Lane closures are in the process of being removed," stated National Highways on X at 6:40 a.
m.
The agency further detailed the immediate impact on commuters as the lane recovery process commenced.
"There are delays in excess of 120 minutes with 6 miles of congestion," stated National Highways.
According to the traffic monitoring service Inrix, all lanes on both the northbound and southbound carriageways were eventually reopened to the public.
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Emergency repairs continued on an adjacent stretch as heavy residual queues slowly began to ease.
