East Cross Route

East Cross Route (ECR) is a dual-carriageway road constructed in east London as part of the uncompleted

A12

.

Route

At its northern end, the ECR (A12) follows part of the route of the former

A115

roads, above which the line passes. The branch track to the docks that ran alongside the ECR to Old Ford, which had been used only for freight since the 1940s, was subsequently closed and lifted in the early 1980s.

At Bow Road, the junction with the

A13

). It passes under the A13 in another grade separated junction, becoming the A102, and then enters the Blackwall tunnel.

South of the

A2213

) or continues as the later section of the Rochester Way Relief Road built in the 1980s.

History

The ECR and the other roads planned in the 1960s for central London which formed Ringway 1 of the London Ringways scheme 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

A12 and required just the sort of controversial construction methods and widescale demolitions of residential areas that caused the 1960s schemes to be cancelled and provoked to the major M11 link road protest

. After the new road was built, the northern part of the ECR became the A12.

Had the North Cross Route been built incoming traffic from the M11 would have been able to continue west from Hackney Wick junction on a motorway standard road past Dalston, Highbury, Camden Town, under West Hampstead to Kilburn (where a link to the M1 would have been built) and then west to Harlesden, where it would have connected with the West Cross Route, running south to connect with the A40, A4 and on to cross the Thames to connect with the South Cross Route.

Also at Hackney Wick a route was proposed running across Victoria Park to Bethnal Green; it would have then run over the Regent Canal to finish at the Angel, Islington, here it would have met the A1 road.

It is probable that this road would have been named "Eastway" to form a pair with the Westway now which performs a similar function from Paddington to White City 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

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 (0.80 km) 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.

Parts of the route, at the northern end between Hackney Wick and

Highways Agency to the Greater London Authority

.