BIRMINGHAM INNER RING ROAD.

Abstract

The authors deal with the development of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road from its conception in 1917 to its completion as a traffic route in 1971. The detailed design of the road together with estimates was prepared in the early 1940s and parliamentary powers to carry out the land acquisition and the construction of the road were obtained in 1945-46. Work started on site in 1957 and the paper deals with the changes that were made to the original design consequent on new projections of traffic growth. These primarily consisted of the introduction of grade separation at the junctions. These changes, however, did not alter the original concept of the road as an all-purpose dual carriageway with frontage development. One of the changes was to introduce a 600 M long tunnel and the paper gives details of the design of this together with information on the ventilation methods used. The paper, in addition to giving details of the specifications and construction methods used, deals with the problems associated with carrying out a major civil engineering work in a highly developed city centre area with the consequent disruption to existing mains services and to pedestrian and vehicular traffic movement. Information is given on traffic design capacities of the various sections of the road together with some details of the actual flows on completion. Finally the authors give their opinion on the effect of the construction of the inner ring road on the development of the city centre and conclude with some thoughts on the possible future development of the city centre area as affected by the ring road. /Author/TRRL/