The M45 is a short stretch of motorway in central England. It runs from Junction 17 of the M1 motorway south east of Rugby and ends with a junction with the A45 road south-west of Rugby. It has one limited-access junction around two-thirds of the way along from the M1, near Dunchurch.
The motorway is around 10 miles (16 kilometres) long and is one of the least busy parts of the British motorway system.
It was built in the late 1950s, when the M1 (as part of a link from London to Birmingham) went as far as Junction 18; the M45 was designed to dissipate some of the motorway traffic before the M1 terminated. Its equivalent at the southern end of the M1 is the M10.
In the 1960s it was one of the busiest roads in Britain. However in 1972, the opening of the M6 provided a much faster route through to Birmingham from London. Most traffic diverted to this route, leaving the M45 with only a fraction of its previous traffic.
See also: List of motorways in the United Kingdom
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