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We write about UK road infrastructure and history! Join us for updates and other stuff from the UK's favourite roads website, www.roads.org.uk
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The Ringways Map is here
The wait is over! The full map of the Ringways, London’s unbuilt urban motorway network, is now online. Not even the system's planners had anything like this.
www.roads.org.uk
New! After eight years of waiting, they're online! See London's unbuilt motorways as even their planners never could in our amazing, immersive Ringways Map, hosted by the amazing SABRE Maps. It *might* be the best thing we've ever done. #ringways
If you liked the Ringways Map, this is for you 👇🏻
Well, we promised a follow-up for #MapMonday to the fascinating London Ringways #Map for another major city in Great Britain, so here it is...
The Greater Glasgow Transportation Study from 1968.
The Greater Glasgow Transportation Study from 1968.
November 10, 2025 at 6:08 PM
If you liked the Ringways Map, this is for you 👇🏻
It's meant to spare you from a nasty collision, but is the Accident Black Spot sign really helping? We pay a visit to Essex to see the resurrection of a questionable idea from the past. #essex www.roads.org.uk/blog/acciden...
Accident Black Spot
Someone's been bringing 1950s signs back from the dead. Is that wise?
www.roads.org.uk
November 10, 2025 at 5:08 PM
It's meant to spare you from a nasty collision, but is the Accident Black Spot sign really helping? We pay a visit to Essex to see the resurrection of a questionable idea from the past. #essex www.roads.org.uk/blog/acciden...
It is a VERY good week for maps 🤩
Keep your eyes on SABRE Maps tomorrow - following the Ringways Map publication, we'll be publishing another huge set of plans for a different major city in Great Britain so that you can compare them clearly against our huge map collection. Any ideas as to which city it will be?
November 9, 2025 at 7:56 PM
It is a VERY good week for maps 🤩
If you've just arrived via the Ringways Map, hello! 👋 You might like this podcast I recorded for Radio 4 a few years ago, telling the Ringways story and how I came to be writing about it. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...
BBC Sounds - The Boring Talks, #32 - Roads That Don't Exist
Chris Marshall loves roads... even those that don't actually exist.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 9, 2025 at 4:32 PM
If you've just arrived via the Ringways Map, hello! 👋 You might like this podcast I recorded for Radio 4 a few years ago, telling the Ringways story and how I came to be writing about it. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...
We've spent a lot of time this week talking about unbuilt motorways in London, but Glasgow has plenty of those too - and we've got a whole page exploring the amazing artist's renderings of the futuristic world planners hoped to create. #glasgow www.roads.org.uk/articles/gla...
November 9, 2025 at 3:03 PM
We've spent a lot of time this week talking about unbuilt motorways in London, but Glasgow has plenty of those too - and we've got a whole page exploring the amazing artist's renderings of the futuristic world planners hoped to create. #glasgow www.roads.org.uk/articles/gla...
Blimey, it’s not normally this lively in my weird little niche. Am I going viral? Is this blowing up? Is it time to hire an agent?
November 9, 2025 at 10:42 AM
Blimey, it’s not normally this lively in my weird little niche. Am I going viral? Is this blowing up? Is it time to hire an agent?
Reposted by Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I’d always wondered why no one had ever published a full, detailed map of the 1960s plan to turn London into a giant web of US-style urban motorways…. It turns even the politicians and designers didn’t make one at the time. It just didn’t exist. Until now.
Earlier this week I spoke to London Centric about the Ringways Map and all things unbuilt London - they’ve dedicated the whole of their latest edition to the story! substack.com/home/post/p-...
Would your home have been under a motorway?
"The most astonishing and destructive thing never to happen to London," says the man who has spent twenty years researching the first true map of the unbuilt Ringways.
substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:40 AM
I’d always wondered why no one had ever published a full, detailed map of the 1960s plan to turn London into a giant web of US-style urban motorways…. It turns even the politicians and designers didn’t make one at the time. It just didn’t exist. Until now.
Earlier this week I spoke to London Centric about the Ringways Map and all things unbuilt London - they’ve dedicated the whole of their latest edition to the story! substack.com/home/post/p-...
Would your home have been under a motorway?
"The most astonishing and destructive thing never to happen to London," says the man who has spent twenty years researching the first true map of the unbuilt Ringways.
substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Earlier this week I spoke to London Centric about the Ringways Map and all things unbuilt London - they’ve dedicated the whole of their latest edition to the story! substack.com/home/post/p-...
Not just a lost council but also a lost street layout and probably several lost subways too!
A relic from the days of the GLC - next to one of the subways at Aldgate.
November 8, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Not just a lost council but also a lost street layout and probably several lost subways too!
One tiny A-road ties together Northern Ireland's motorway network and makes sense of Belfast's streets. Are we wrong to love the small but mighty A12 Westlink? #belfast www.roads.org.uk/motorway/a12...
A12 (Northern Ireland)
These two miles of dual carriageway in central Belfast somehow manage to form the most important link in Northern Ireland's road network.
www.roads.org.uk
November 8, 2025 at 3:20 PM
One tiny A-road ties together Northern Ireland's motorway network and makes sense of Belfast's streets. Are we wrong to love the small but mighty A12 Westlink? #belfast www.roads.org.uk/motorway/a12...
Our whistlestop history of the UK's road network is sometimes picked up as a learning resource in schools. (More so than our story about a stolen cake, which tells you a lot about priorities in education.) Take a look at our timeline of 20th century highway history. www.roads.org.uk/articles/tim...
Timeline
A whistle-stop tour of the motor age, from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. No pedestrians, horse drawn vehicles, invalid carriages or motorcycles under 50cc please.
www.roads.org.uk
November 7, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Our whistlestop history of the UK's road network is sometimes picked up as a learning resource in schools. (More so than our story about a stolen cake, which tells you a lot about priorities in education.) Take a look at our timeline of 20th century highway history. www.roads.org.uk/articles/tim...
Reposted by Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Wow! 😮🤩
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
November 6, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Wow! 😮🤩
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
There's a new interactive map of Every Known Road in the Roman Empire!! 🤓
itiner-e.org
We might have to have a lie-down.
Unstable, unsafe and scheduled for demolition: catch Gateshead’s iconic, never-finished double-deck flyover while you still can. Our photo gallery will show you the sights. #gateshead www.roads.org.uk/photo/gatesh...
November 6, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Unstable, unsafe and scheduled for demolition: catch Gateshead’s iconic, never-finished double-deck flyover while you still can. Our photo gallery will show you the sights. #gateshead www.roads.org.uk/photo/gatesh...
Not many roads are named for the shape they make on a map, but the A500 is. Its number takes second place to its affectionate nickname, the Stoke "D" Road. #stoke www.roads.org.uk/motorway/a500
A500
A spine road for the Potteries, making sense of the jumbled towns and villages that cluster around Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme and keeping the M6 free of local traffic.
www.roads.org.uk
November 5, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Not many roads are named for the shape they make on a map, but the A500 is. Its number takes second place to its affectionate nickname, the Stoke "D" Road. #stoke www.roads.org.uk/motorway/a500
Reposted by Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
After yesterday's excitement with the Ringways #Map, we'd like to remind people that you can literally layer any other map of London in our collection on top of it via the Map Fader.
November 4, 2025 at 6:02 PM
After yesterday's excitement with the Ringways #Map, we'd like to remind people that you can literally layer any other map of London in our collection on top of it via the Map Fader.
It either scares the life out of you or gives you a thrill like nothing else. (For me it's the latter.) No road enthusiast's life is complete without a pilgrimage to Swindon to visit the Magic Roundabout. #swindon www.roads.org.uk/articles/mag...
The Magic Roundabout
Officially the seventh most frightening thing on the road network - but actually it might just be the most efficient junction ever designed.
www.roads.org.uk
November 4, 2025 at 5:47 PM
It either scares the life out of you or gives you a thrill like nothing else. (For me it's the latter.) No road enthusiast's life is complete without a pilgrimage to Swindon to visit the Magic Roundabout. #swindon www.roads.org.uk/articles/mag...
Earlier today we published the Ringways Map, in collaboration with @maps.sabre-roads.org.uk. We are beyond excited to finally put it online - below is a thread explaining why it's so special, but to see it for yourself just follow the link: www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p... 🧵
www.sabre-roads.org.uk
November 3, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Earlier today we published the Ringways Map, in collaboration with @maps.sabre-roads.org.uk. We are beyond excited to finally put it online - below is a thread explaining why it's so special, but to see it for yourself just follow the link: www.sabre-roads.org.uk/maps/index.p... 🧵
More details on our just-published Ringways map from our friends at SABRE who are hosting it ⬇️
London's Ringways are a whole network of unbuilt urban motorways threaded through the capital. There's never been a complete map of them,not even one made by their designers, until now. Today we're publishing the Ringways Map from @roads.org.uk to let you see in the city that London nearly became.
November 3, 2025 at 3:07 PM
More details on our just-published Ringways map from our friends at SABRE who are hosting it ⬇️
New! After eight years of waiting, they're online! See London's unbuilt motorways as even their planners never could in our amazing, immersive Ringways Map, hosted by the amazing SABRE Maps. It *might* be the best thing we've ever done. #ringways
The Ringways Map is here
The wait is over! The full map of the Ringways, London’s unbuilt urban motorway network, is now online. Not even the system's planners had anything like this.
www.roads.org.uk
November 3, 2025 at 2:47 PM
New! After eight years of waiting, they're online! See London's unbuilt motorways as even their planners never could in our amazing, immersive Ringways Map, hosted by the amazing SABRE Maps. It *might* be the best thing we've ever done. #ringways
Devon's road signs use all sorts of colours and boxes that you won't see anywhere else in the UK. It's all part of a county-wide system to tell you how wide each road is and save you getting stuck between two hedges. Our guide explains it all. #devon www.roads.org.uk/blog/devon-h...
November 2, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Devon's road signs use all sorts of colours and boxes that you won't see anywhere else in the UK. It's all part of a county-wide system to tell you how wide each road is and save you getting stuck between two hedges. Our guide explains it all. #devon www.roads.org.uk/blog/devon-h...
Reposted by Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
On this day: 66 years ago (1959): Britain's first major motorway opened, with five pieces of land earmarked for future service stations.
Britain's Original Five services
Retrieved from "https://motorwayservices.uk"
motorwayservices.uk
November 2, 2025 at 11:28 AM
On this day: 66 years ago (1959): Britain's first major motorway opened, with five pieces of land earmarked for future service stations.
Arriving this week, after an eight year wait... the Ringways Map. Our Ringways pages will finally be joined by a high resolution map showing the entire city with its urban motorway network. Stand by for fireworks! In the meantime you can revisit our Ringways pages here: www.roads.org.uk/ringways
November 1, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Arriving this week, after an eight year wait... the Ringways Map. Our Ringways pages will finally be joined by a high resolution map showing the entire city with its urban motorway network. Stand by for fireworks! In the meantime you can revisit our Ringways pages here: www.roads.org.uk/ringways
Clapham Junction station is a sprawling expanse of tracks and platforms, busy day and night. It would only have got busier and more complicated if sixties planners had their way and suspended a two-level, eight-carriageway motorway above it. #clapham www.roads.org.uk/ringways/rin...
Clapham-Wandsworth Link
A short connection in London's never-built Ringway network with a surprisingly complicated history and a critical role to play.
www.roads.org.uk
October 31, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Clapham Junction station is a sprawling expanse of tracks and platforms, busy day and night. It would only have got busier and more complicated if sixties planners had their way and suspended a two-level, eight-carriageway motorway above it. #clapham www.roads.org.uk/ringways/rin...
Western Avenue is perhaps the only truly good road in to Central London. But there were plans for it to be higher, wider and faster than it is now. What happened to plans for a double deck road through Acton? www.roads.org.uk/ringways/wes...
M40 and A40
It's one of London's most complete radial routes, but the road envisioned by sixties planners would have been bigger: perhaps a motorway, perhaps double-deck, perhaps not.
www.roads.org.uk
October 29, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Western Avenue is perhaps the only truly good road in to Central London. But there were plans for it to be higher, wider and faster than it is now. What happened to plans for a double deck road through Acton? www.roads.org.uk/ringways/wes...
Reposted by Roads.org.uk 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Ordnance Survey Tourist #maps are a long-standing mapping series designed to display areas not well covered by standard maps. And they're usually incredibly pretty. And sometimes, they capture transient items that aren't caught by standard map series... buff.ly/auNTL6Q
October 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Ordnance Survey Tourist #maps are a long-standing mapping series designed to display areas not well covered by standard maps. And they're usually incredibly pretty. And sometimes, they capture transient items that aren't caught by standard map series... buff.ly/auNTL6Q