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London’s lost mega-motorway: the eight-lane ring road that would have destroyed much of the city

I'll just leave this here:London’s lost mega-motorway: the eight-lane ring road that would have destroyed much of the city."In the car-crazed 1960s, planners came up with a scheme to slash through the capital’s inner suburbs with huge freeways. Only fragments were ever built – but they tell of a fate narrowly avoided"London’s lost mega-motorway: the eight-lane ring road that would have destroyed much of the city https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/13/londons-lost-mega-motorway-the-eight-lane-ring-road-that-would-have-destroyed-much-of-the-city?CMP=share_btn_tw

Martin Weaver ● 1356d7 Comments

The decades between the 50s and 70s have given us so many eyesores, architecturally speaking, that one would not believe. We're lucky architects and city planners didn't manage to do to London what was done to so many American cities, or we'd have a hellscape not unlike so many US cities and towns (there's an Instagram account called cars.destroyed.our.cities where you can see some before-and-after photos of the damage done to places ranging from Milwaukee to Cincinnati to Denver).

Francis Sheehan ● 1356d

There is further information about the project here: https://www.roads.org.uk/ringways

Michael Robinson ● 1356d

I recall that the plan was to replace the Hounslow Loop railway route through Chiswick eastwards with a section of ringway. That was at a time when railways were not seen as a part of the future (hence the Beeching cuts). It is notable that while London escaped the worst of the destruction, England's second city, Birmingham, went ahead with its series of ring roads - some of which have more recently been closed off to through traffic. And while London's M41 never got further than the section from Shepherds Bush roundabout to the Westway flyover, Birmingham suffered having the M6 built through the urban area, Spaghetti Junction and all.

Richard Greenhough ● 1356d

This is quite a good film explaining what might have been....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUEHWhO_HdY

Paul Scullion ● 1356d

RG > "... England's second city..."If you ask someone from Manchester: "what is England's second city?", they will say Manchester; someone from Birmingham will say Birmingham; but someone from Liverpool will say London!:-)

John Whitworth ● 1356d

“The route of Ringway 2's Western Section as described below comes from highly secretive plans produced by the GLC in the late 1960s, and which the documentation shows they chose not to publish in an attempt to keep a lid on the public's anger. This might actually be the first time the official route has been described with certainty, outside of a few secretive GLC planning meetings half a century ago - though in practice it's actually no different to the route everybody had suspected all along.”Gosh, good job there’s none of this secrecy and skullduggery nowadays.

Russell Pearson ● 1356d

Unfortunately architects and planners are still imposing huge destruction, as documented on here and in other sites, eg the proposed car park by the Gunnersbury nature reserve and the Twyford Abbey debacle among much others.  Vast swathes of concrete, hideous buildings and beautiful old trees cut down.  Beware of plans around St Michaels/Turnham Green Terrace from local architectural groups/firms including plans to pedenstrianise which will suck out the lifeblood of the street.

Claire Moran ● 1355d