The A57(M) Mancunian Way is an urban motorway section of the A57 running to the south of Manchester city centre. The motorway forms a 1.5 mile (2.4km) section of the Manchester inner ring road and provides a quick way for east-west traffic to avoid the city centre.
The central section of motorway was completed in 1967, and is mostly elevated above ground level on a series of concrete stilts. In the early 1990s, the A56 Chester Road junction at the west end of the road was remodelled to include an underpass for the Mancunian Way. At about the same time, a flyover was built on the east side, carrying the Mancunian Way over the A6.
The eastern extension over the A6 is technically classified as the A635(M), although it is not signed on the ground as such. At just 530 metres (580yds), the A635(M) is the shortest motorway in the UK.
The Mancunian Way does not have any hard-shoulder, and some of the sliproads are very short and some are of unusual design. At the A34 crossing, there is also a "ghost sliproad" which ends 30 feet up in the air. Had it been finished, it would have led traffic the wrong way up a one-way street.