'''Ringway 1''' or the '''London Motorway Box''' was the innermost of the series of four London_Ringways, ring roads planned in the 1960s to circle London at various distances from the city centre. They were part of a comprehensive scheme developed by the Greater_London_Council (GLC) to alleviate traffic congestion on the city's road system by providing high speed Motorway-standard roads within the capital linking a series of radial roads taking traffic into and out of the city. The scheme was cancelled in 1973.
:''for a detailed history see London_Ringways''
Ringway 1 was planned to comprise four sections across the capital forming a roughly rectangular box of motorways. These sections were designated:
*North_Cross_Route - from Harlesden to Hackney_Wick via West_Hampstead, Camden_Town, Highbury and Dalston
*East_Cross_Route - from Hackney Wick to Kidbrooke via Bow, Blackwall and Greenwich
*South_Cross_Route - from Kidbrooke to Battersea via Lewisham, Peckham, Brixton and Clapham
*West_Cross_Route - from Harlesden to Battersea via North_Kensington, Shepherds_Bush, West Kensington, Earls_Court and Chelsea_Harbour
Only the East Cross Route and the section of the West Cross Route between North Kensington and Shepherds Bush were constructed. The Westway which links Paddington to the north end of the built section of the West Cross Route was also built.
Much of the motorways would have been constructed as elevated roads on concrete pylons and the routes were designed to follow the alignments of existing railway lines to minimise the amount of land required for construction. Nevertheless the disruption and widespread demolition required to build the Ringway would have been considerable and the cost was estimated by the GLC to be £1.7billion in 1970 (about £18billion in 2006).
Image:London_Motorway_Box_1960s_Plan.png
==See also==
Other London Ringways
*Ringway_2
*Ringway_3
*Ringway_4
==External link==
*cbrd.co.uk - Ringway 1
Category:London_ring_roads
Category:Orbital_roads
Category:Transport_in_London
Category:Brent
Category:Camden
Category:Greenwich
Category:Hackney
Category:Hammersmith_&_Fulham
Category:Islington
Category:Kensington_&_Chelsea
Category:Lambeth
Category:Lewisham
Category:Southwark
Category:Tower_Hamlets
Category:Wandsworth