Western Radials
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Away to the West, four or five radial routes push out to the provinces. This set is probably the most complete in the Ringway plan: of its various proposals, all of them exist in some form. Some were built largely as intended; others partially so. One of them was built many years later to a revised plan.
It would be reasonable to expect that, with so much evidence on the ground, the Western Radials must be pretty much wrapped up in terms of research. Sadly not. In many cases these roads are some of the most frustratingly enigmatic. We don't know, for example, whether the M3 was meant to travel further into London or where most of it would have gone if it did. We don't know if the present A40 represents the GLC's ambitions or if it was meant to be a higher standard. We don't know whether the M4 was meant to continue past Hammersmith to reach Ringway 1, though on this last point, it's starting to look like the Ministry of Transport and GLC didn't know the answer either.
