The M1 De Villiers Graaff motorway is a metropolitan route and major freeway in the City of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Construction began in 1962 and resulted in the demolition of many properties and houses including numerous historical Parktown Mansions.

[2]: 107  The M1 then proceeds north-north-east through the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg such as Parktown, and the industrial area separating Sandton and Alexandra.

[4]: 577 The plan for the original motorway began in Bramley at Corlett Drive and headed south through Killarney and Parktown before cutting through the ridge between the University of the Witwatersrand and the Milner Park Agricultural Showgrounds and then over the Braamfontein railway yards through Newtown to the east–west interchange.

[4]: 578  From there it would cross Crown Mines land and head southwards past Robertsham to another proposed interchange and future Western Bypass (N12) before ending at the beginning of the Kimberley Road.

Odendaal and Johannesburg Mayor, Keith Flemming, just north of the Braamfontein Yards, site of the first bridge on the elevated motorway.

[4]: 578 The motorway is named after the white South African opposition leader and United Party head, Sir De Villiers Graaff.

[5]: 328  A third section involved the reconfiguration of roads to form an eastern CBD bypass connecting the north–south motorway with Saratoga Avenue.

[5]: 328 Planning began for six-lane bridge that would have to cross the Braamfontein Railway Yard and would be part of the M1 motorway to connect the city with its northern and southern suburbs.

[5]: 329 The construction on the Sivewright Road / Berea Street and the Siemert Road / End Street reconfiguration, important to connecting the future eastern bypass connecting the M1 in the northern suburbs at the proposed Killarney interchange with the M2 East at the proposed Heidelberg Interchange, was nearing completion.

[5]: 329 Johannesburg City Engineer Department's planning was completed on the Goch Street double-decker section on the future M1 northern route.

Also planned was a forty-metre bridge allowing Showground Road (now Enoch Sontonga Avenue) to cross the new motorway slightly south of the new cutting.

[5]: 329 On the M1 motorway northern route, contracts were awarded for work from Braamfontein through University Ridge to Rockridge Road in Parktown.

[5]: 331 On the M1 North, the Goch Street double decker and its two ends, a connection to a future Westgate Interchange and Braamfontein Railway bridge, were completed.

Work on the Siemert Road / End Street route making up part of the eastern bypass was completed.

[5]: 331  During October 1969, the M1 northern motorway section from De Korte Street in Braamfontein to Sherbourne Avenue, Parktown was opened.

[5]: 332 M1 in the northern suburbs was now completed to Bramley at Corlett Drive and connected the motorway and Johannesburg to the Provincial and National government's N1 Ben Schoeman Highway and Pretoria.