If you've ever tried driving around
London you'll know what a [BEEP]ing nightmare it is. We Londoners spend longer sitting in
traffic jams than anywhere else in the country and most of us don't even enjoy it. In the 1960s there were ambitious
plans to completely transform London's roads making jams like these a thing of the past. They made a start in some places, but as you can see they didn't finish. London was not designed for the car. In fact it wasn't designed at all. It grew in gradual steps with the Romans,
Tudors and Victorians all contributing their own streets, many of which remain today. It's these very same streets that we in
the 21st century squeeze onto trying to get about in our
cars, buses and lorries. Look at this. The quickest way to get from, say Hampstead
to Highbury, is to go all the way down to Camden Town through the
complicated one-way system all the way back up to Holloway and
down Holloway Road, which takes ages. At peak time, the average speed for that
journey is a pathetic 10mph. I can run that fast. You might think "How can London go on
with a road system is slow as this?" Well, they were thinking about that as
early as the 1940s. In 1944, a man called Patrick Abercrombie
produced the County of London Plan. Its aim: to deal with the looming problem
of congestion in London. London was taking a beating in The Blitz,
so there was a great opportunity for rebuilding everything. Abercrombie saw it
as a chance to give London a new road system fit for the twentieth century. In central London, narrow Victorian streets would
be bulldozed to make way for wide, Paris-style boulevards, and in the suburbs there'd be wide
ring roads going in circles around the city. Ring roads play a crucial role
in modern town planning. Here to explain is transport expert, Graham Roads. Ring roads allow vehicles to travel
from one side of town to the other without going through the busy middle. So that's fewer traffic jams and faster journeys. Patrick Abercrombie was really ahead
of his time because the traffic wasn't so bad in the forties. People didn't pay much attention to his
rather ambitious plans until 20 years later. By 1966, car ownership had skyrocketed. Everyone had a car and everyone was
causing traffic jams. Abercrombie was dead by now but his bold plans were just coming to
life. Not only did the rebuilding of London's roads seem like a good idea, it was now essential. The planners of the 60s liked
Abercrombie's ring roads idea but they wanted to take it quite literally
to a new level - a new type of road that was futuristicer than anything
Abercrombie had ever seen - the Motorway. Six lanes, a central reservation
and hard shoulder for safety, no speed limits... back then. The first motorway to open in Britain
was the M1 invented in 1959. In 1966, for
the first time, motorways were going to be brought right to the heart
of the capital. Eurgh. The plan was to build four motorway
ring roads in and around London. And the name for the project was 'Ringways'. Ringway 1 was to form a motorway box
around central London. Ringway 2 was further out, making a
circle through the middle of the suburbs. Ringway 3 was further out still, roughly
following the border of greater London. And Ringway 4, way out in the
countryside was for traffic that wanted to avoid London altogether. Today, hardly any of it has been built. The plans were vast, ambitious, disruptive,
expensive and extremely unpopular. Only one complete circle was ever made: The M25. By 1973 they'd made a good start
on Ringway 3 up near Potters Bar. And at the time he was called the M16. Bits of Ringway 4 were
also starting to appear. But two years later, the Ringways scheme
was officially cancelled. So instead, it was decided to connect up
the bits of 3 and 4 that they'd built so far making one complete loop. Finally in 1986, the M25 was opened to the public by Margaret Thatcher. You can see evidence of them hastily
stitching up the two routes today. Up by South Mimms the M25 famously
splits in twain, leaving a big grassy gap in the middle. That's because it was designed as a
couple of slip-roads, and the rest of Ringway 3 was meant to go this way. Today, the M25 has earned itself an
infamous reputation in popular culture. "The M25..." It is the most congested motorway
in the UK. and is increasingly inadequate for the
needs of London and the South East. For example People traveling from Brighton to Reading use this section of the M25 and people traveling from Croydon trying to get their flight at Heathrow
use the SAME section of the M25. Busy busy busy! All on its own, the M25 does a job that was
meant to be taken on by three motorways. There's no alternative further out and
there's no real alternative further in. The closest thing London has to a
suburban ring road is made up of the North Circular and the South Circular. But they're not much good either. The North Circular whizzes through the
suburbs like a twat going... "Yeeeeeah! Look at me! Out of my way! I'm the. . . ahem. . . I'm the North Circular! Wahaaay!! But it comes to an abrupt stop
at the Woolwich Ferry. And then, once south of the river, it
has a complete change of character, going Sorry, excuse me, do you mind if I,
terribly sorry, excuse me, could I just, sorry.. So how did we end up with only half of
Ringway 2?
0:05:50.666,0:05:54.999
In other words, why is north London
better than south London? The reason predates Ringways by
several decades. The North Circular Road came about in
the 30s when much of north London was still being developed. So there was
loads of room to make it wide, fast and more or less future-proof. When the Ringways
scheme came along in 1966 all it needed was a bit of widening here and there.
Half the job done! The South Circular on the other hand was a
different story altogether. The route it takes goes on streets that
have been here for centuries. In fact there isn't really such thing as
the South Circular Road at all. It's just a series of scarcely believable
road signs. It was then, and still is now, totally inadequate as a ring road. But widening it was out of the question. To finish Ringway 2, they needed to
build a completely new South Circular that was as much of a twat as the
North. But to build a 20th century road through
19th century suburbs, it was a case of ploughing through whatever buildings were
unlucky enough to be in the way. This nice street was on their hit list. The best way to see the destruction the
new road would have caused is to look from above... wheeeeeee. A total of 36,000 people in suburbs like Beckenham and Crystal Palace
would have their homes exploded to make way for the new road. One look at this terrifying
artist's impression, and the planners decided It just wasn't worth it. So Ringway 2 was cancelled and
outer London was spared. But in central London, traffic was at
such a stand-still that something had to be done. So in 1967, a small section of
motorway was given the go-ahead. London's Westway twists and turns
from White City to Marylebone. Although technically not part of
Ringways, it give us a perfect view of what Ringway 1, the motorway box would
have looked like and how it would have affected the surrounding area. Eurgh. Argh! AARGH!! AAAAAARGH!!!!! (sobs) It was the construction of the Westway
that woke London up to the reality of what a city throttled by a motorway box
would be like. Just like here in Notting Hill, many more
parts of inner London would have a motorway like this blasted through the middle
including Kilburn... Camden... Canonbury... Brixton... and Battersea. The locals were understandably not happy and they protested. Londoners took to the streets to oppose
what they saw as the destruction of their city. And if that wasn't enough of a
headache for the Greater London Council, The Treasury weren't happy about how much the
Ringways scheme was going to cost. There were some heated discussions at
the time between the GLC and the Treasury as to who would finance the
London Ringways Scheme Uh huh... Ringway 1 was causing the most controversy
as it was it was the most expensive per mile. Really? We estimated it would cost £2 billion.
That's £18 billion in today's money. That's very interesting(!) But there was no public support
and negative press so the government decided it could not
finance the London Ringways Scheme. A combination of protest, financial woes
and political kerfuffle brought an end to Ringways 4, 3, 2 and 1. So what legacy remains of Ringways today? Looking on a map, there are flecks of
Ringway 4 which in some parts of Hertfordshire is confusingly called the "North Orbital Road" The short and stubby West Cross Route in
Shepherds Bush was planned as part of Ringway 1, and so was the East Cross Route. Until the year 2000, these were both shown in
blue as proper motorways on the map. Also, when Ringways was cancelled, it had a
knock-on effect and lots of other road building projects
were cancelled too including some that they'd already started. The M23 from Brighton stops
at this mysterious unfinished junction just after the M25 instead of Ringway 2 where they wanted it to finish. Here's another example The M1 which stops at Staples Corner. You can see on Google Earth that they
left plenty of room at this junction for it to carry on further south.
But without Ringway 1 there was nowhere for it to end. If built to plan, the M1 would
have met Ringway 1 at West Hampstead at an enormous triple layer junction
totally ruining this landsc... eurgh, really? Surely no one cares about this place. It's tempting when you're in a traffic
jam like this one to think about how useful those Ringways would have been but it's a complicated issue.
There are pros and cons. Pro: The motorways would have taken traffic
away from the surface streets. This road would be much nicer, quieter
and safer if it weren't lumbered with the unenviable task of being the South Circular. Con: 60% of Londoners would have lived
two miles away from a motorway. They would have been so ugly, so
prominent, and so everywhere, that London would have become famous for them. Pro: With Ringways, East London would have got
itself a new bridge at Woolwich. Much more convenient than this boat. Con: The motorways would be physical
boundaries dividing up communities. Londoners would probably identify
themselves by which ringroads they were stuck between. Pro: They'd make journeys faster. Con: Actually they wouldn't Studies have shown time after time that
buildings new roads attracts more cars. Los Angeles is mostly highways, and the
traffic jams there are worse than here! Had Ringways happened in London, it would have
set the precedent that you're supposed to drive. The jams would continue, and Ringways
would defeat their own purpose. You have to admire the optimism and
confidence they had back then. In the 60s the word "progress" was
a much simpler word. More cars! Taller buildings! Wider roads!
Rebuild everything! More! Everything we do is amazing! But today's approach is a softer,
more cautious one. It's not that we're scared of progress we're simply scared of cars. Transport policy today is almost
entirely about measures to reduce the number of drivers. The fact that London is such a crazy
improbable maze is possibly the best way to encourage people not to bother with
the car and use public transport instead. The lack of motorways has allowed areas like
Camden to come to life. I think future generations trying to solve the
transport problems of their time will be grateful for what the twentieth century didn't do. So it looks like for the foreseeable
future, we'll have to sit in traffic jams no matter what. And if that's true we might as well sit
in our traffic jams and enjoy the view.
This should be a full TV series.
For more great stuff from Jay Foreman, check out Map men, map men, map map map men men!
I love this guy's videos
This guy is the brother of famous beat boxer Beardyman
lol difference in circulars got me
https://youtu.be/yUEHWhO_HdY?t=326
It only took 2:22 until I hit the subscribe button. Damn this is good.
Washington DC had a somewhat similar problem. The Beltway was supposed to be three highways. Inner, middle, and outer. To this day, differing directions on 495 are referred to as the inner and outer beltway.
But they only built one, and yes it does get a little loaded up. So we have HOT lanes now, and if you're so inclined you can buy your way to freedom. Truly the American Way. Makes me wonder if the UK might ever try it someday.
The fuckin' M-twenty-FIVE!!
The situation with the motorways is insane. I lived in Scotland and took a journey with a Welsh friend south to Glamorgan in Wales by car from Glasgow. Even the M6 was at a standstill near Manchester northward because of a truck/lorry breakdown. I don't mean as in you sit in your car and wait, I mean people got out of their cars and started chatting. To this day, I imagine those people are still out there, chatting away wondering if they will ever see home again. (And I'm from Atlanta so I know a thing or two about traffic)