Inner Ring Road

I will be in Coventry tomorrow for a Bablake 80s reunion (1980s, I'm not yet in my eighties) so I will swing by the Herbert whilst I'm in town and see if they have anything. Thanks for the PDF, looks like a fascinating read.

I think we've touched on this before but wasn't the original plan for the RR to route south of the station - but was quickly amended when they realised several Councillor's houses would have to be bulldozed!

Oh, why does that not surprise me! And here was me thinking it might be because of all the logistical difficulties bridging over the railway!

That story of the ring road being canned because of the councillors is probably an urban myth (designed to make the council look bad) and that website is factually incorrect about the 'modelling' that was done. The current kink was modelled to see it was safe by using Fortran programs. Quite an innovation at the time. The ring road's route was given permission in the late 1940s, but not started for some years and the route was pretty much the route planned in the 1940s. The main change was that it went from a surface level road to grade separated (around 1960), despite warnings about the problems it would cause for the city. As it was originally a surface level road, the fact the station was outside was not an issue, it was only the grade separation and complex junctions that made it physically separated and accessed by tunnels and bridges. A quick glance at a map would show how a road that encircles the station would have had to cross the railway twice (perhaps the junctions) and would have had to be run through housing and factories. Instead, it followed the route of an existing road.

Interesting Flap, thanks for the info I've never been a fan of what the RR did as far as the clearance of land to build, however it does work well. I actually had to look up what grade separation was It would have looked nicer as surface level but suppose it would have not been as effective as well.

I believe this site has a copy of the original layout from around 1945. Not only would it have looked nicer, it would not have contributed to the city centre's decline. I've seen it written a few times that other towns and cities used Coventry's mistakes to avoid making their own!

Was there a link in there? I don't see it! Drew a blank on Saturday, the records bit was closed and I won't be able to get into Coventry again (when it's open) until the 22nd. Having lived in Wolverhampton, I can tell you that where the ringroad is level, it regularly gridlocks in rush hour. Coventry RR, though ugly, does work! Which is more than I can say for Malfunction Junction this morning, where the temporary lights have packed up. Oh joy! Think I'll take the M6 tomorrow, at least I won't have to cross a dangerous junction on red.

Malfunction Junction is a pain at the mo, and I don't think these changes will improve it at all. Still think Broad Lane was better before they reinstated the stupid island. With the ring road, the trunk roads (which IMO should be classified as part of the ring road system because you can't use the RR without them) back up for MILES at rush hour and move pretty slowly. Western side you see traffic spilling off the slip roads back onto the carriageways making the ballet of getting on/off even more complicated than normal). So for all the few minutes you make up there you lose elsewhere unless your start and destination are very close to the ring road itself. When you take into account all the problems it creates for the city centre in terms of lost foot traffic and just avoidance of the area in general by potential visitors (not to mention the look of it!) an at-grade RR with upgraded/expanded trunk roads would be a much better solution. Also separate roads for getting onto the RR and entering the city centre rather than them all doing both. Also Coventry is a very decentralised city - much of the stuff is in business/retail parks on the outskirts. The city centre is much more like a small town centre and if it was used as much as a city the size of Coventry should be, the RR wouldn't cope.

My dad, Patrick Coker, worked for Gallifords and was site manager for five out of the six stages. He wanted to complete stage 6, but had to move into the Wolvey office. When he left the site they gave him a road sign 'Patricks Rd'. The RR was an impressive engineering project for it' time, and it gave 'Gallys' a high profile. That was the zeitgeist, modern, cars and development. Certainly dad thought new was good, old was bad. Dad was from Holbrooks and was always very proud of his part in the construction of the RR. Everytime we would go from Hinckley to watch the City, he would always manage to use the RR, tell us (the same) stories of its construction. While the RR did destroy part of the city, the idea was sound. It was a shame the old city was not rebuilt, and pedestrianised. Imagine that Old Cov, bypassed by cars with parking where you could take a tram into the centre. The Blitz was only part of the destruction, the Town Planners were much worse. If I had a few million..... I don't think the decline of city centre shopping is totally the fault of the RR, it was booming in the 70's. At the Sky Blues we used to bump into a lot of the blokes who worked with dad, one (Seamus ?McCafferty?) always used to slip me & my bro' a fiver - big money in those days! He's probably dead by now, but I always wanted to buy him a beer. There was A LOT of money in Cov in those days.

I used them when I lived in Sheffield, great for hopping on and off. We (and other European nations like France) removed them because they got stuck in traffic and the middle classes wanted their cars to be king. It was the same thinking that killed many railways and resulted in grotesque mistakes like Coventry ring road. The UK's political system means it's hard for cities to build systems, which is why we don't have any, but places like France have been building them over the years. Post copied from topic The Coventry you will never know on 17th Feb 2018 1:06 pm

Hi Flapdoodle - Just wondering why you described the Ring Road as a "grotesque mistake"? Do you mean its appearance, or the effect it has had on constricting the outward development of the city centre? What is the alternative - traffic going into and out of the centre? Public transport is a great idea, and I'm all for a cheap, integrated public transport system, but it is effective, timewise, for most people to drive their cars. Post copied from topic The Coventry you will never know on 17th Feb 2018 1:07 pm

Personally I've no problem with a road that takes traffic around the city centre, but the big issue for me is the barrier it creates as a raised structure and it should be levelled wherever possible. It takes up a frankly ridiculous amount of land with the junctions and sliproads, and the fact that the trunk roads were never widened to cope with it creates tailbacks onto the sliproads and often go back onto the carriageway itself, especially on the NW side at rush hour. A few extra minutes on the journey would be forgotten very quickly but the extra land that would become economically useful and allow expansion of the city centre would make it more than worth it. Plus the increased numbers of people I'm sure would venture into the city centre from surrounding areas would increase city centre spending and make it a more sensible proposal for other retailers, entertainment and eating establishment etc. I know our ring road puts off a number of people from visiting and has created numerous bad first impressions on people. We're losing some potential tourist income from it. I would also consider splitting up the number of junctions on it, providing some routes that don't connect to the ring road and solely go in/out of the city centre, whilst others do not lead into the city centre and just connect to the ring road. Thus people wanting to get into the city centre aren't held up in the traffic that just wants to go around the city centre. I think the proposal to finish the outer ring road to the NW is a great idea and will take a lot of pressure off the RR - that side of the ring road is far busier than the eastern side which has the A46 as an alternative route if you want to go around the city.

If people are wondering why there are hold-ups on the inner ring road, I think I've found the answer

Both its appearance and the detrimental effect it has had on the city centre. There's a compelling argument (with some evidence) that the ring road killed businesses in the city centre. Larger cities manage without them. Birmingham planned to disassemble its ring road not long after they completed it by removing 'through' traffic from the city centre. Coventry almost encourages traffic to use the city centre as a through route, which is frankly ludicrous. We have a dead city centre and an inner ring road used as a through route. It's not even very good, as the junctions tend to jam up anyway.

An interesting read - "Coventry Had 12-Foot Wide Cycleways In The 1950s -- Why Did Britain's Detroit Destroy Them?" Can anyone locate the two images with the 'Cycle-paths'?