THE
ROAD
We were asked to explore a neighbourhood – Hackney Wick – through a
series of walks, recording and mapping our experiences with the aim of
formulating a design project.
What struck us in the photos we took on our first walk was not the subject – ostensibly ‘the city’ – but the background; the intermittent presence of a road running around the neighbourhood, a definitive but apologetic horizon. At times, it loomed behind us; at others, it melted into the trees; and at night, it lit our walk from above.
What struck us in the photos we took on our first walk was not the subject – ostensibly ‘the city’ – but the background; the intermittent presence of a road running around the neighbourhood, a definitive but apologetic horizon. At times, it loomed behind us; at others, it melted into the trees; and at night, it lit our walk from above.
Drawing the road: depth mapping, or the East Cross Route as landscape (left); greener grass, or the East Cross Route as wall (right).
THE EAST CROSS ROUTE
Plans for a system of London motorways span successive
governments and date as back as far as 1903 with the establishment of the Royal
Commission on London Traffic. City planners dissatisfied with London’s
haphazard and disorganised industrial sprawl sought to exercise control over
the street network, making way for the motor car by instituting mass
road-widening and legislature to facilitate and prevent obstructions to major
road plans.
The first Arterial Road Conference was held in 1910 and swiftly followed by a flurry of planning activity, interrupted but undeterred by the First World War, eventually transforming travel throughout the capital with a programme of over 100 miles of works, mostly completed by the mid-1930s. This success was short-lived, however, overwhelmed by demand and ever-increasing traffic and congestion figures.1
The first Arterial Road Conference was held in 1910 and swiftly followed by a flurry of planning activity, interrupted but undeterred by the First World War, eventually transforming travel throughout the capital with a programme of over 100 miles of works, mostly completed by the mid-1930s. This success was short-lived, however, overwhelmed by demand and ever-increasing traffic and congestion figures.1
‘Timed trip’ Evening Standard van, photographed in Grosvenor Place, 16 November
1938. Source: Rooney, D.J., (2016) The Traffic Problem: Geographies, Politics and Technologies of Congestion
in Twentieth-Century London,
Ph.D., Royal Holloway, University of London.
Abercrombie’s 1943 ‘County of London Plan’ and 1944
‘Greater London Plan’ outlined an optimistic vision for the future, excising
traffic congestion altogether by correcting London’s ‘structural deficiencies’
through the introduction of a system of concentric ring roads designed for
motor traffic only, connected by radial routes travelling outward in every
direction.2 In the rush to rebuild in the wake of the Second World War, however,
and in the face of dwindling funding and support, the notion of comprehensive
city-wide redevelopment and rezoning was swiftly abandoned.
Clip from The Proud City: A Plan for London. (1946). Directed by Ralph Keene. United Kingdom: government-sponsored film.
Clip from The Proud City: A Plan for London. (1946). Directed by Ralph Keene. United Kingdom: government-sponsored film.
The recovering economy of the ‘50s afforded greater
investment in transport and infrastructure. The ghost of Abercrombie’s
concentric motorways persisted through subsequent plans over the next
decade, and in the early 1960s, with the abolition of the LCC and establishment
of the Greater London Council in the face of an impending traffic crisis, the Ringways
plan was (re)born.3
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Diagram from a 1968 Greater London Council pamphlet describing the Motorway Box plans as they would have related to the Blackwall Tunnel. Source: London’s Docklands Past and Present. Accessed at: londondocklands.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/building-the-blackwall-tunnel-approach-road/.
Diagram from a 1968 Greater London Council pamphlet describing the Motorway Box plans as they would have related to the Blackwall Tunnel. Source: London’s Docklands Past and Present. Accessed at: londondocklands.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/building-the-blackwall-tunnel-approach-road/.
The GLC outlined a decades-long plan for road construction
that resurrected the ring-and-radial pattern and identified a series of
‘optimum traffic corridors’ that the new motorways, dubbed ‘Ringways,’ would
serve. The innermost Ringway 1, a direct descendant of the London Motorway Box,
would encircle sixty square miles of Central London, making it one of the
largest inner ring roads in the world. Unveiled to the public in 1966, planners
touted their intention that speeds on Ringway 1 would never drop below 35mph. More
of a box than a ring, it was split into four components, known as the North,
South, East and West Cross Routes.4
As successive parts of the scheme were unveiled, each further announcement
was met by a mixture of horror and dismay, as the implications of this colossal
superimposition became clearer. At a cost of £1.7bn (£12.9bn today) – what
would have been the most expensive scheme of public works ever undertaken in
the UK – and requiring the eviction and relocation of over 36,000 people, public
opposition to the Ringways scheme was swift.5
One of the East Cross Route’s flyovers under construction around a row of terraced houses on Cadogan Terrace, Hackney Wick, in 1971. The houses now back onto a major dual carriageway. Source: A Plan for Greater London, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/index.php/ringways/plan-greater-london.
The unified political consensus of the 1960s rapidly
disintegrated.6
GLC Plans for Ringway 1 were approved by the Cabinet in February
1973, but with the decisive victory of the Labour party in the London Council
elections just two months later, the Planning and Transportation department was
directed to abandon all plans – the Ringways were dead.7
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Source: Portavecchia, D. (1972) “The dark clouds roll away as Ringway threat is lifted”. Croydon Advertiser, London, 8 September 1972.
Source: Portavecchia, D. (1972) “The dark clouds roll away as Ringway threat is lifted”. Croydon Advertiser, London, 8 September 1972.
An aerial view of northern Hackney Wick, the site of the proposed Hackney Wick Interchange. Source: Google Earth.
Today, the
East Cross Route is one of the few extant parts of the Ringways scheme, and possibly
the only piece to have been built in its entirety. As an existing road proposal
that was absorbed into the Ringways scheme, it follows a sharply twisting
alignment, working around obstacles rather than dismantling them, its route
weaving through railway bridges, embankments, ‘cut-and-cover’ tunnels and
underpasses.
At its northern terminus would have been the Hackney Wick Interchange, a large free-flowing spaghetti junction where the ECR was to take over from the North Cross Route and merge with the M11 and Eastern Avenue. This junction was never completed – only two of the four major roads approaching it were ever built – so its through route largely follows a course of what were supposed to be sliproads, many of which would have been temporary if not for the dissolution of the Ringways plan.8
At its northern terminus would have been the Hackney Wick Interchange, a large free-flowing spaghetti junction where the ECR was to take over from the North Cross Route and merge with the M11 and Eastern Avenue. This junction was never completed – only two of the four major roads approaching it were ever built – so its through route largely follows a course of what were supposed to be sliproads, many of which would have been temporary if not for the dissolution of the Ringways plan.8
The proposed layout of the Hackney Wick Interchange, the junction between the East Cross Route, North Cross Route and several other major roadways.
During 1994,
with the slated demolition of a row of houses on Claremont road in Leytonstone in
order to create a link between the EastCross Route and the M11, a group of anti-road protesters gathered to
set up an autonomous republic called Wanstonia, painting walls, populating the
street with sculptures and stringing nets across houses to escape the police. In
November 1994, police in full riot gear stormed the street, evicting the
remaining residents. The properties were demolished soon afterward.9
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Occupation of Claremont Road as part of the M11 link road protests in the mid-1990s. Netting, reinforced with ropes and steel cables, was strung up between houses and trees, allowing communication between and movement of protesters without using the ground, whilst also obstructing the movement of cherry-picker hydraulic platforms. Source: Mendel, G. (1994) The Battle of Claremont Road. Accessed at: gideonmendel.com/claremont-road/.
Occupation of Claremont Road as part of the M11 link road protests in the mid-1990s. Netting, reinforced with ropes and steel cables, was strung up between houses and trees, allowing communication between and movement of protesters without using the ground, whilst also obstructing the movement of cherry-picker hydraulic platforms. Source: Mendel, G. (1994) The Battle of Claremont Road. Accessed at: gideonmendel.com/claremont-road/.
Source: Solomons, D., ed. Atkinson, C. (2016) M11 Link Road Protest. England: Café Royal Books.
Source: Solomons, D., ed. Atkinson, C. (2016) M11 Link Road Protest. England: Café Royal Books.
1. Early Plans, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/ringways/early-plans.
2. Post-War Planning, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/ringways/post-war-planning.
3. Ibid.
4. A plan for Greater London, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/ringways/a-plan-for-greater-london.
5. Ringway 1, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/ringways/ringway-1.
6. Rooney, D.J., (2016) The Traffic Problem: Geographies, Politics and Technologies of Congestion in Twentieth-Century London, Ph.D., Royal Holloway, University of London.
7. The end, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/ringways/the-end.
8. East Cross Route in ‘Ringway 1’, Roads.org.uk. Accessed at: roads.org.uk/index.php/ringways/ringway1/east-cross-route.
9. Mendel, G. (1994) The Battle of Claremont Road. Accessed at: gideonmendel.com/claremont-road/.
Top: Aerial view of the Trowbridge Estate, 1970s [Historic England, Aerofilms Collection]. Source: Davis, J. (2016). The making and remaking of Hackney Wick, 1870-2014: from urban edgeland to Olympic fringe. Planning Perspectives, 31 (3), pp. 425-457. doi:10.1080/02665433.2015.1127180.
Right: Greater London Council (GLC) patch. Source: Patchion LTD.
