The '''West Cross Route''' is a short, 0.75 mile Dual_carriageway section of the A3220 route in central London. The road runs north-south between the northern elevated Roundabout junction with the western end of the Westway (A40), and the southern Holland_Park Roundabout. The road opened in 1970 together with the Westway.
The West Cross Route was formerly numbered as the M41 motorway. Its status was downgraded to an A-road in 2000 when responsibility for Trunk_roads in Greater_London was transferred from the Highways_Agency to the Greater_London_Authority. It was possibly the shortest Motorway in the UK.
Approximately half-way along the road's length, a new junction has been built to serve the "WhiteCity" shopping development currently under construction.
West Cross Route (WCR) was originally the designation for the western section of Ringway_1, the innermost circuit of the London_Ringways network, a complex and comprehensive plan for a network of high speed roads circling and radiating out from central London designed to manage and control the flow of traffic within the capital. The road would have run from Battersea to Harlesden and would have paralleled the National_Rail West_London_Line as an elevated road above the streets of London.
==Context==
:''See London_Ringways for a detailed history''
The WCR and the other roads planned in the 1960s for central London had developed from early schemes prior to the Second_World_War through Sir Patrick Abercrombie's ''County_of_London_Plan, 1943'' and ''Greater London Plan, 1944'' to a 1960s Greater_London_Council (GLC) scheme that would have involved the construction of many miles of motorway standard roads across the city and demolition on a massive scale. Due to the huge construction costs and widespread public opposition, most of the scheme was cancelled in 1973 and the WCR and Westway as well as the East_Cross_Route in east London were the only significant parts to be built.
At the road's northern end, the entry and exit ramps to and from the elevated roundabout with the Westway would have been, had the road been built in full, slip roads with the main route continuing north beneath the roundabout into North_Kensington and on to the junction with the North_Cross_Route at Harlesden. The alignment of the slip roads leave a wide space between for the unbuilt carriageway. On the north side of the roundabout, two short stubs indicate the starting point of the slip roads that would have been provided for traffic joining or leaving the northern section of the WCR.
South of the Holland Park roundabout, which the WCR would have passed above on a flyover, the route would have continued along the alignment of the West London Line passing over Kensington_(Olympia)_station to a westbound only interchange with the A4 at Talgarth Road. It would then have been elevated over Earls_Court_Exhibition_Centre, skirted the western edge of Brompton_Cemetery, and passed by Stamford Bridge stadium before an eastbound only interchange along Lots Road to meet Cheyne_Walk. Next the WCR would have crossed the River_Thames on a new bridge and entered Battersea where it would have had a junction with the South_Cross_Route.
Image:London_Motorway_Box_1960s_Plan.png
==External links==
*CBRD.co.uk West Cross Route
*Motorway Archive - A40(M) Westway and M41 West Cross Route
*Pathetic Motorways
**Mock-up of how the West Cross Route might have appeared on a map if built in full
**M41 Photographs
*Google Maps - Aerial view of the roundabout at the north end of the West Cross Route showing the two slip road stubs
{{UK motorways}} 4-0041 4-0041 Category:Streets_in_London Category:London_ring_roads Category:Kensington_&_Chelsea Category:Hammersmith_&_Fulham Category:Wandsworth
{{UK motorways}} 4-0041 4-0041 Category:Streets_in_London Category:London_ring_roads Category:Kensington_&_Chelsea Category:Hammersmith_&_Fulham Category:Wandsworth