Revealed: West Midlands' slowest roads
The morning commute often makes drivers feel as though they are going nowhere fast - now the figures prove them right.
In a list of the top 10 slowest routes in the West Midlands, from statistics released by the Department for Transport, eight are in the Black Country – including three in Sandwell and two apiece in Dudley and Wolverhampton.
The A34 southbound in Sandwell, Walsall Road, was the slowest in the West Midlands with an average speed of 8.2mph in June. This also ranked fifth on the list of the top 10 worst commutes outside London.
The second slowest stretch of road was the southbound section of the A4030, Smethwick's Bearwood Road, where morning speeds only reached 10.2mph on average.
Third place on the list is the A4150 eastbound in Wolverhampton, or the St David's ring road, which averaged a speed of 10.5mph for the morning commute.
Other tediously slow roads in the Black Country for the morning commute included the A4100 westbound in Dudley, Upper High Street, and the A459 northbound in Wolverhampton, Blakenhall's Dudley Road, where motorists travelled at 10.9mph and 13.3mph respectively.
As a comparison, the quickest A road in the West Midlands during the morning commute was the A4177 northbound, or Birmingham Road, in Solihull, which saw average rush hour speeds reach 44.5mph.
1) A34 southbound, Great Barr: average speed of 8.2mph
2) A4030 southbound, Smethwick: 10.2mph
3) A4150 eastbound, W'hampton: 10.5mph
4) A4100 westbound, Dudley: 10.9mph
5) A4030 northbound, Smethwick: 12.6mph
6) A4092 eastbound, Smethwick: 12.6mph
7) A457 eastbound, Birmingham: 12.7mph
8) A4100 eastbound, Quarry Bank: 12.9mph
9) A459 northbound, W'hampton: 13.3mph
10) A4400 southbound, Great Charles Street, Birmingham: 13.4mph
The figures released by the DfT also show that Wolverhampton had the slowest roads in the West Midlands on average for the morning commute.
Motorists in Wolverhampton averaged a speed of just 16.4mph, compared to 17.5mph in Birmingham and 17.6mph in Sandwell.
Henry Carver from the Wolverhampton Business Group believes slow roads and ultimately poor transport links is costing the Black Country investment.
He has called for a review of bus lanes on other stretches of road and said: "If cars are all jammed up and the bus lanes are empty then cars should be allowed to go in them.
"In the Black Country we have poor infrastructure which is costing us investment. Good infrastructure is something that people underestimate.
"The deeper you go into the Black Country, with poorer transport links, then the less investment they get.
"One of the main reasons we have Jaguar Land Rover at the i54 business park is because of how close it is to the M54.
"If you look at Wolverhampton Business Park and the Science Park, they get good investment because they've got good infrastructure."
The release of the figures comes just days after parts of the West Midlands ground to a halt when the busiest section of the M6 was closed for eight hours on Friday due to an accident. All six lanes of the motorway had to be closed after a lorry and two cars collided at 10.40am.
The result left the motorway gridlocked with football fans having to miss the start of the Aston Villa Manchester United premier league tie at Villa Park, which kicked off at 7.45pm.
But despite the crawling traffic of the Black Country, drivers have it a lot better than they do in London.
According to the DfT figures, across the whole of the UK the slowest stretch of A road in the whole of England is the A407 westbound in Barnet, where cars travelled slower than walking pace at an average of 2.8mph.
The top 10 slowest A roads were all roads in and around London, and included the A400 Northbound in Westminster where motorists travelled at 3.8 mph, the A2203 Northbound in Greenwich where motorists travelled at 3.9 mph and the A3220 Northbound in Wandsworth where motorists travelled at an average of 4.2 mph.
The list of the10 worst commutes outside London was topped by the A6042 northbound in Manchester which saw average speeds of 7.1 mph for the morning drive.
Other snail-like commutes outside London could be found on the A2010 southbound in and the A566 Eastbound in Liverpool, which averaged speeds of 7.4mph and 7.7mph respectively.
The DfT concluded that A roads across England are getting slower, with the average rush hour speed of 24.4mph in June 2014 falling slightly to 23.8mph in June 2015.
