If I recall from a TV programme a year ago, Edinburgh City Council 'went mental' in the 60s/70s with plans for a motorway box around the New Town, crossing Princes Street on stilts at one end and probably burrowing through Calton Hill at the other, and if I read they were going to throw slips down to the abomination that is the St James's Centre I wouldn't have been surprised.

What came of this (other than it never got built, not a speck)? Any documentation out there on the web?

I read a book once which had something about this.

Princes Street was suppose to have turned into under these plans.

there was a thread about 2 or 3 weeks ago where somebody scanned in a map showing this as projected.

Odd that. Have just found those two scans. Scary:

here is a thread that has the plans in

unfortunately they are in an msn attachment, so are hard to get. If Gavin wants to repost them, that'll be excellent, or if someone can dig up the attachments off msn...

Simon

This is a subject that I was interested in a while back and I was able to get some plans of the proposed road through the library in Edinburgh. The proposal was quite something.

Anyways If I can dig out the photocop....sorry drawing that I made Ill scan it in and post it. Id also like to try and transpose this onto an OS map sometime aswell. If they had taken the bold step Im sure that we wouldnt be locked up with grid lock now in Edinburgh.

Princes' street was NOT to be a motorway, the motorway would have avoided this street but it would have formed a loop round the city with quite a few tunnels being utilised.

The scans shown here basically show the detail of the plan that I have along with an overall proposal sketch. The road would have started at an at grade roundabout located at the junctions of York Place, Leith Street and Leith Walk. The road would have headed south from here under Calton Hill and then down towards St Lenoard's Street and Bernard Terrace junction. This would have been motorway standard, a couple of junctions would have been built both of them spurs leading to the west, one going under North Bridge and linking to Waverly Bridge. Another spur being roughly in the Drummond Street area.

At the Bernard Terrace junction the road would have turned west and headed through the south flank of the meadows, very likely to have been in a cutting. a new roundabout would have been built at the Lothian Road Mellville and Leven junction. The motorway then turning north to go Queensferry Road where it would have made the turn east to head back to the at grade roundabout at Leith Street.

An A1(M) was to be built as well - this would have linked back out past Duddingston Loch and out of the city, towards what is the current line of the A1 past Tranent....

The M8 would have entered the city of Edinburgh along the lines of the Western Approach road and linked to the City Loop motorway.

In fact up until qthe recent alteration of the M8 / M9 junction you could have seen the ghost M9 that would have skirted the southern side of the airport and merged with the M8 heading to the city centre.

I dont think that we would have had the city bypass though as the road would have headed right into the city, maybe they would have built some form of bypass though to relieve the traffic.

Gavin

Ghost M9 - what was that?

This was the road that appeared to continue on where the M9 stopped before they built the underpass at Newbridge - the line of the M9 vered off through towards the airport it would have crossed the exisitng A8 either by bridge or going under some place between Newbridge and the airport.

Got the scan loaded up -its in the scottish motorway section other motorways - its quite large so my appologies to those not on broadband.

Gavin

WOW! Very interesting plans for the Scottish capital there! Amazing they ever thought could have pulled it off, but the optimism they had in the 1950/60s was huge. I guess the fact that Glasgow had impressive plans made the leaders of Edinburgh want urban motorways as well. I have to admit though that I'm glad they never came of much. Unlike some other cities which either could do with decent urban roads or only survive because of them, Edinburgh's plans seem a bit overblown and would have killed many of the things that the current city relies upon such as tourism. But very interesting plans all the same, nice work.

Can't remember the exact details, however I believe that there were plans for two seperate motorways around Edinburgh, one to the east probably near the water-front, and one to the west, probably near the site of the Edinburgh bypass. These were both abandoned some time ago

I've traveled from Renfrewshire to Granton several times recently and for 54 miles it can take up to 2 hours. The roads are really not fit for purpose, especially with all the new construction being carried out, at Granton, and several different docks, and today's announcement of new construction at Leith. Instead of wasting up to 1 billion pounds on the trams which don't really benefit anyone, the money should have been used to construct a new motorway from the M9/M8 to the A1 (which should also be upgraded),probably going through Davidson Mains, Goldenacre, Leith, Portobello and Musselburgh and joining the A1 near Tranent.

This would result in a lot of through traffic being taken from the streets of Edinburgh, and allow traffic to speed up, resulting in the removal of a lot of pollution, and decrease CO2 levels.

Ideally the city should have had a motorway built around it from the end of the M8 to the A1 at the Musselburgh by pass, rather than the piecemeal ring road that was built with the notorious Sheriffhall roundabout. Also the M8 should have been D3M from the start, linking to a D3M motorway by pass. While we're at it, this ring motorway should have linked with the A90 at Cramond, replacing the A902, with the A90 uprated to D3M to the Forth Bridge.

Various Edinburgh plans through the ages here

http://www.paulzie.com/photos/thumbnails-21.html

Some were built, some not

Hi

can you please explain where I can find this? I can't see a Scottish Motorways section on this website or do you mean another site?

cheers

Tim

Glasgow probably got a motorway system with a motorway running through its suburbs as these are not particularly attractive places and have little tourist potential, unlike some elevated D3M flying over Morningside or Holyrood. Also for all car ownership levels have always been low in Glasgow, the area around the city is far more built up than Edinburgh and many people commute into Glasgow in their cars.

Interesting to see some drawings I produced for the A68 years ago there.