This route was late in its completion because it made use of a four-span viaduct-style bridge over Eagle Crossing (carrying a section of railway between Walsall and Brierley Hill which had closed two years earlier) in the Toll End area of Tipton.
[1] The third and final phase of the route was completed in the spring of 1997, with a one-mile (1.6 km) stretch of Holyhead Road being converted into a dual carriageway at half the cost of the original proposed route which would have made use of an entirely new road between Moxley and Wednesbury.
As well as relieving traffic congestion, the Black Country Spine Road also opened up several square miles of previously inaccessible land around Wednesbury and Tipton.
This allowed for commercial and light industrial development to take place and create jobs in an area which since the 1970s had been hit by de-industrialisation and unemployment.
Unemployment figures in some of the area surrounding the Spine Road are still relatively high, but the businesses set up along the route have boosted the local economy.