unsurprisingly, London is all for the better for these projects having been canned in the 60's - very few massive roads cutting up neigbourhoods, and helped avoid the massive tipping into redesigning cities for single/low occupancy cars. it's so successful, that in 2022, 46% of households in greater London have *zero* cars. if you're curious what it what have looked like, go for a walk around Notting Hill and see how Westway has damaged the human environment and walkability.<p>so, yay.<p>obligatory jay foreman video on the topic: <a href="https://youtu.be/yUEHWhO_HdY" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/yUEHWhO_HdY</a>
Thank god this didn’t go ahead. It would have made london into a car centric hellhole, and I suspect traffic would still be terrible. I’ve never been to any large city where the traffic flows freely, regardless of how much road infrastructure there is.
Robert Moses was successful carrying out many projects like this in the 1960s to add urban highways in NYC and other northeast US metropolitan areas.<p>It's mostly a big tragedy. Neighborhoods sliced through, where highways created largely impermeable boundaries for pedestrians. And the swaths of destruction where eminent domain was invoked and then dense, culturally rich, bustling, thriving blocks and blocks were bulldozed and paved.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses</a>
The proposals for the inner ring are really astounding - it would have gone right through all sorts of lovely historical neighbourhoods, across nice local parks - right through many of the nicest inner suburbs in London. Every time I see the fortress-like sides of Southwyck House in Brixton I'm reminded of it. If it had gone ahead it really would be a completely different city today.
I do <i>not</i> like the way the text scroll just ‘jumps’ ahead when scrolling down after the header picture. The title has disappeared above your screen before you have time to read it. It reminds me of the Apple product pages, whereby your scroll is constantly hijacked by spinning pictures of laptops opening and closing.
> Today, London has only one ring road<p>Errr...the North and South Circular?<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Circular_Road" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Circular_Road</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Circular_Road,_London" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Circular_Road,_London</a>
Glasgow's M8 (incomplete) ringroad is famous for its ski-jumps to no-where and ghost junctions and sliproads.<p><a href="https://www.roads.org.uk/articles/glasgow" rel="nofollow">https://www.roads.org.uk/articles/glasgow</a><p><a href="https://www.scottishroadsarchive.org/m8" rel="nofollow">https://www.scottishroadsarchive.org/m8</a><p>There's a really good book on the subject matter by John Cullen who was one of the original engineers who worked on the project:<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0955378109" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0955378109</a>
Before WW2 there was a plan to dramatically extend the London Underground miles into the surrounding countryside, far beyond the metropolis. The depression paused that plan and WW2 and the impoverishment of the country ended it. I hope someone writes a similar article about the unfinished transport system that we call the tube.
Those proposals were extreme, specially Ringway 1, but getting around London is far worse than in Paris, which has the benefit of Haussmann's boulevards pierced after the upheavals of revolutions, and the Périphérique. Political stability entrenches vested interests and NIMBYism, like the fact much of London's choicest property is still owned by descendants of the feudal aristocracy and people don't own the land their houses are built on, they just lease them like medieval serfs would have, since land reform never happened in England.<p>At one point, there was even a proposal to build massive highways <i>underground</i> instead, but Paris' friable limestone (just as in London) and long history of undocumented quarries make any tunneling effort fraught.
Interesting to read in the current context of the Silvertown tunnel currently being built despite complaints from both sides of the river and an admission from TFL that it may make traffic worse south of the river.<p>Not to mention the fact that cyclists can’t use the tunnel…
And this is why our governments love China so much. As Trudeau said:<p>"There's a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime."<p>And it is also a reason why governments and their pet projects, despite their claimed authority, are not actually serving those they purport to serve. Huge projects at public expense - eg the creation of the road networks we do have - don't necessarily serve people, but do serve corporations (eg automakers).
The dartboard should be done for the London tube/rail network. It easy to get into central London from periphery (say Bromley to Victoria is 20min by train, 1hr by car), but periphery to periphery is not good if you dont have direct train (eg Bromley to Greenwich is 45min by train, but 20 min by car). The situation is worse if you are carrying luggage and/or kids.
Whilst things like Westway are an abomination, the other parts of London's road structure are little better. I used to live just off the South Circular, which is a road system in notion only - there are almost no dual carrige-ways, and the route simply joins up a lot of suburban minor roads. The North Circular is somewhat better (unless you live next to it), but not much.
Is it now time to start digging these things (where they actually were built) up?<p>Dismantling freeways, returning neighbourhoods. The harder it is to get anywhere by car, the more people will demand good public transport.
Couldn't you use Elon Musk's Boring Company to recreate the missing Ringways as underground tunnels?<p>I remember as an American overseas in 1975 that it was one of the most baffling aspects of driving in London. I don't know if they still do it but the rental car companies would offer to drive you from Central London to the beginning of the freeway. Assuming they took either a bus or the tube back.<p>I took a trip to Bournemouth to see a ham radio buddy and ended up being white knuckled the entire way. After our visit I ended up turning the car in and taking the train back into London!