East Cross Route

East Cross Route (ECR) was the designation for the eastern 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 ECR was constructed in the late 1960s and early 1970s and runs from Hackney Wick in north-east London, through the Blackwall Tunnel, to Kidbrooke in south-east London. The ECR was initially designated as part of the A102 but has, subsequently, been partially renumbered so that sections of it are now the A2 and A12. Parts of the route, at the northern end between Hackney Wick and Old Ford and south of the river between the Blackwall Tunnel and the Sun-in-the-Sands interchange, were previously classified as urban motorways and given the designation A102(M). The status was downgraded to a standard A-road in 2000 when responsibility for trunk roads in Greater London was transferred from the Highways Agency to the Greater London Authority.

__TOC__The route included the construction of the northern of the two bores of the Blackwall Tunnel and its Northern and Southern Approach roads as well as part of what is now the Rochester Way Relief Road. The construction work required to pass a six-lane dual carriageway with grade separated junctions through the congested streets of east London was considerable.

Route

At its northern end, the ECR (A12) follows part of the former route of the closed North London Railway between Victoria Park and Old Ford stations which were demolished for the road's construction. The open section of the North London Line to Stratford station was partially diverted to enable the construction of the junction with the non-dual carriageway section of the A102 and the A106 and A115 roads, above which the line passes.

At Bow Road, the junction with the A11 involves a triple-layer junction. The ECR passes through in a cutting below an interchange roundabout whilst the A11 passes above on a flyover. South of this junction, the ECR passes Bromley-by-Bow station and skirts the River Lee Navigation for a short distance as it follows the line of the former St Leonard Street. It then crosses Limehouse Cut and continues along what was Brunswick Road to East India Dock Road (A13). It passes under the A13 in another grade separated junction, becoming the A102, and then enters the Blackwall tunnel.

South of the River Thames, the ECR (A102) skirts Tunnel Avenue and flys over Blackwall Lane (A2203) and Woolwich Road (A206) before climbing the hill towards the Sun-in-the-Sands interchange where it passes under Shooters Hill Road (A2/A207) and becomes the Rochester Way Relief Road (A2). It squeezes through the tight space between Rochester Way (the old A2 route) and Woolacombe Road before it ends at the Kidbrooke interchange where it connects to Kidbrooke Park Road (A2213) or continues as the later section of the Rochester Way Relief Road built in the 1980s.

Context

:"See London Ringways for a detailed history"

The ECR 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 ECR and the West Cross Route and Westway in west London were the only significant parts to be built.

At the northern end of the ECR, the unrealised plans would have seen it connect at Hackney Wick to the unbuilt North Cross Route (running west across north London), the M11 motorway (which was originally planned to continue south from its current starting point at the North Circular Road (A406) in South Woodford). Part of this plan was eventually achieved in a modified form when, in the 1990s the extension of the A12 was constructed through Leyton, Leytonstone and Wanstead to connect to the ECR at Hackney Wick. The A12 extension required just the sort of controversial construction methods and widescale demolitions of residential areas that caused the 1960s schemes to be cancelled. After the new road was built, the northern part of the ECR became the A12.

:Incoming traffic from the M11 would have been able to continue south-west through the Hackney Wick junction on an unbuilt motorway standard road which would have headed to The Angel, Islington where it would have met the A1 and the Inner Ring Road. This motorway would have followed one of two alternate routes; either along the north side of Victoria Park and then the alignment of the Regent's Canal or, more destructively, across the western tip of Victora Park and along Hackney Road to the north of Bethnal Green, across Hoxton and then to the Angel via City Road.

:When the North Cross Route plan was published in February 1967 this road was given the cumbersome title "Eastern Avenue Extension" but it is probable that this road would have been named "Eastway" to form a pair with the Westway which performs a similar function from Paddington to North Kensington and, in fact, a short section of road adjacent to the ECR north of the Hackney Wick junction does bear this name today.

At the southern end of the ECR, the plan was to connect it at Kidbrooke to the South Cross Route (running west across south London), the A2 (heading east out of London) and the A20 (heading south-east out of London). In fact, a new dual carriageway section of the A2 was constructed through Eltham to meet the ECR at Kidbrooke in the 1980s providing an efficient route out of London in this direction and the A20 passes only about 0.5 miles to the south although it does not connect directly to the ECR and it was never upgraded to the motorway standard road that was intended.

Without the construction of the other parts of the 1960s motorway plans the context of the ECR has been lost in the subsequent road renumbering and the only section of the East Cross Route which continues to carry the name is the former northern motorway section of the route in Hackney Wick.

External links

* [http://www.cbrd.co.uk/histories/ringways/ringway1/east.shtml CBRD.co.uk East Cross Route]
* [http://www.pathetic.org.uk Pathetic Motorways]
** [http://pathetic.org.uk/former/a102m_east_cross_route/ A102(M) East Cross Route]
** [http://pathetic.org.uk/former/a102m_blackwall_tunnel_southern_approach/ A102(M) Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach]
* [http://www.iht.org/motorway/page1.htm Motorway Archive]
** [http://www.iht.org/motorway/a102mhackney.htm A102(M) Hackney Wick]
** [http://www.iht.org/motorway/a102mbtapp.htm A102(M) Blackwall Tunnel Southern Approach]