This stretch takes the M40 past the east side of Oxford, from Thame at Junction 7 to the A34 interchange at Junction 9. It is where the motorway turns north. Reports for these junctions are shown below.

The junctions on this stretch

• Junction 7 — the A329 for Thame and Wallingford.
• Junction 8 — the A40 for Oxford and Cheltenham, and Wheatley. The original motorway ended near here, at Great Milton, in 1974.
• Junction 8A — the A418 for Thame, Aylesbury and Oxford, and Oxford services.
• Junction 9 — the A34 for Oxford and Newbury, and the A41 for Bicester and Aylesbury.

Why this is the quietest part of the M40

At Junction 8, traffic for Oxford and Cheltenham leaves on the A40, and at Junction 9 new traffic arrives from the A34. The stretch in between carries less than anywhere else on the main line.

M40 Junctions 7 to 9 — Oxford: vehicles a day, stretch by stretch

Stretch	All vehicles	Lorries	Share lorries
J7 to J8	92,005	6,448	7.0%
J8 to J9	70,986	7,735	10.9%

© M40Traffic.co.uk · Statistics from the Department for Transport

Between Junctions 8 and 9 the Department for Transport has more than one count point; we show the busier, 70,986 vehicles a day, against 69,749 at the other. Around Junction 8 it also counts the spur towards the A418 at 66,274 a day and the link to the A40 at 26,844.

The route that was moved

When the extension north from here was planned, the preferred route was changed to avoid Otmoor after a road protest in which more than 3,000 small squares of a field were sold to people around the world. The field was renamed Alice’s field, after Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Previous stretch: Junctions 4 to 7. Next: Junctions 9 to 11, Bicester and Banbury.

Traffic count figures on this page are from the Department for Transport road traffic statistics, 2025.