"Get us out of this hell."

April 28, 2022 4:11 AM

A fascinating longread on a (terrifying) London that could have been, the origins of British NIMBYism, and the implications for policymaking in the face of climate change. Michael Dnes writes about London's lost ringways (archive) for Works in Progress.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs (8 comments total)

Previously

Jay Foreman's other videos Why London has 32 boroughs and What's wrong with London's boroughs also provide some entertaining background re: policymaking in London.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:21 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

Oh, that M23 appendix was easy to find on Google Maps, and quite interesting.

When I moved to my town in *checks calendar* 1995 there was a similar state of the main road artery into town. It just ended in a berm in the forest, in pristine condition up to that point. Complete with a crossing road bridge with no actual attachments to the ground around it. Well, it had pillars, but there was no road ramps or whatever the English word is.

It was the result of some kind of budgeting issue, but after a year or two construction was underway again, and now it's possible to reach the town without adventures like the world's tightest railway underpass, at least compared to the amount of traffic passing through.

But for a while you could go for a walk on the completed, but unused, stretch of road to get a hit of that peaceful post-apocalyptic feeling.
posted by Harald74 at 5:53 AM on April 28, 2022 [3 favorites]

Glasgow feels like it realised the schemes with road networks that London balked at. There's a lot to be said for it, it's an easy city to drive through using the raised roads but it did come at considerable cost for some of the neighbourhoods, particularly in the east.
posted by treblekicker at 6:06 AM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

That wasn’t so depressing about adapting for climate change. Not extra depressing given the subject, anyway. A worked example of "no silver bullet, but silver buckshot" incremental approaches.
posted by clew at 10:44 AM on April 28, 2022

I was surprised it took as long as 12 paragraphs to get to a mention of Robert Moses. Moses! *shakes fist*
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:32 PM on April 28, 2022 [2 favorites]

I enjoyed this, thanks for posting it.

I live fairly near the north circular in London and it feels like a real scar through the area, so it's hard to comprehend what the full ringway scheme would have been like.
posted by knapah at 1:05 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ursula K Le Guin’s Lathe of Heaven was first published in 1971. It’s about a lot more than urban planning, but urban planning stories from that era always remind me so strongly of that novel.

Particularly ones like this that leave physical remnants of the dream that never quite was.
posted by nat at 2:42 AM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Glasgow is only partially done - only half or so of their original plans were done. See this map for the original plans and how it might have been.

href="https://www.scottishroadsarchive.org/inner-ring-road">This goes over the details.

The M8 through Glasgow currently has some major work happening - several of the viaduct sections are requiring maintenance and there are speculative plans to build over the top of the M8 in the centre of Glasgow which if it ever happens will be quite a dramatic change to the scar of the motorway cutting the city in half.
posted by Leud at 7:09 AM on April 29, 2022