Western radials

The routes are described in order from north to south, telling the stories of a failed motorway project, stalled upgrades, bodged engineering, flights of fancy, a town centre saved from the wrecking ball and a road project mired in impossible politics.

Unlike the Northern Radials and Southern Radials, where entirely new routes and vast new capacity was planned, the Western Radials are notably less ambitious. The A41(M) would have transferred its traffic onto the M1 for journeys into London; the A4 was throttled by the relatively narrow width of the M4 through Brentford; and the M3 was held outside the city, forever to die out at Sunbury.

Difficult politics in West London meant that upgrade work remained uncertain and planners remained cautious right up until the cancellation of the Ringways, and the relatively decent standard of the A40, A4 and A316 in the 1960s meant they were not prioritised for upgrade work. But there's still an interesting story to be told about each of them.

Picture credits

  • Artist's impression of Western Circus flyover scheme is extracted from MT 118/212.
  • Photograph of A4 Great West Road Chiswick taken in 1966 is extracted from MT 118/251.

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