WI: London Ringways are built in their entirety

[Quintuplicate]

The London Ringways were a set of 4 ring roads around Greater London planned to be built in the 1960s, but cancelled due to massive protests. What if they went through as planned? Would London's population increase or decrease, compared to today? Politically, socially, culturally and demographically, would London and the Home Counties look any different from today?

 

[Roberto El Rey]

I don't know much about the details of this scenario, but I am familiar with the ring roads and have often wondered how London's traffic and economy would be impacted if they had been fully finished. I'll watch this thread.

 

[stodge]

Okay - just so I have this straight in my head. Ringway 2 looks like the modern A406 or the North and South Circular Roads while the M25 was parts of Ringway 3 (to the east) and 4 (to the south and west).

Anecdotally, I lived not too far from one of the proposed routes for Ringway 3 to the south of London and the land was compulsorily purchased and set aside for the route and instead of becoming a 1950s roadway it remained Green Belt (undeveloped) land.

Coming back to where I live now, the late 1960s saw the opening of the Dartford Tunnel and the second Blackwall Tunnel. The push to re-generate east London could have started earlier had more river crossings been available.

 

[baldipaul]

Okay - just so I have this straight in my head. Ringway 2 looks like the modern A406 or the North and South Circular Roads while the M25 was parts of Ringway 3 (to the east) and 4 (to the south and west).

Anecdotally, I lived not too far from one of the proposed routes for Ringway 3 to the south of London and the land was compulsorily purchased and set aside for the route and instead of becoming a 1950s roadway it remained Green Belt (undeveloped) land.

Coming back to where I live now, the late 1960s saw the opening of the Dartford Tunnel and the second Blackwall Tunnel. The push to re-generate east London could have started earlier had more river crossings been available.

The Northern part of Ringway 2 is the modern A406 North Circular, the south part should have been the equivalent South Circular and is still desperately needed.

The parts of Ringways 3 & 4 that were completed and the Green connecting bits are the M25. I can’t really see why there were two ringways as they were really quite close together.

I don’t think that Ringway 1 was ever a viable possibility.

 

[Coulsdon Eagle]

IIRC Selhurst Park might have lost a corner, while my primary school would have been next to a huge bridge crossing the Chipstead Valley.

 

[Masked Grizzly]

Have always thought the Ringways could have worked provided there was no or less restrictive metropolitan green belt, along with an additional Arterial A-Ring in Central London traces of which still remain in the later OTL London Ringways. - http://www.roads.org.uk/ringways/post-war-planning

It would be interesting exploring a timeline where such road proposals are built in conjunction with significantly improved underground / railway and other infrastructure projects to their fullest extent (with a POD for underground / railways beginning around 1860s-1870s and certain road projects beginning in 1910s-1920s), prior to a ATL trend towards bicycle lanes and pedestrianization that does not totally inconvenience car owners.