Forgotten/Closed off Streets

[Cadfael]

Kings Drive is probably the best example in Liverpool.

Start of Kings Drive is a dual carriageway until a different council got in and decided that just past (what is now Sainsburys), that we didn't need a dual carriageway so we'll keep it to single lane.

A massive section of grass appears here but then another council got in and decided that near the bottom of Kings Drive, they'd have a dual carriageway again.

And then lastly, another council got in and decided that the roundabout at the bottom of Kings Drive wasn't going to happen, nor was the cut through the loop line which should have joined the other side of Kings Drive up (single lane - massive grassy area).

The biggest fun and games is where Hunts Cross Avenue stops at one side, didn't link to the supposed roundabout, and the other section of Hunts Cross Avenue is as wide as a motorway yet is classed as a 'side' road!

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[taffy]

Taking this thread a bit beyond the closed / truncated streets - there are some places in Liverpool and the suburbs where one comes across streets / roads which do not look as though they have been completed.


There are probably many other "Unfinished Roads" around Liverpool - but they are worth looking out for.


John

Brodie Ave was planned to join Queens Drive near Liverpool College, Mossley Hill. It never did of course

[irishseashipping.com]

[QUOTE=Cadfael;153295]Kings Drive is probably the best example in Liverpool.

Yes this is a good example checking it out on Google Earth one can see just how strange it is. I presume a similar fate befel Princess Drive - dual carraigeway at the Deysbrook and Huyton ends but strangely single carraigeway in the middle though wide enough to provide for DC all the way.

John

[irishseashipping.com]

Brodie Ave was planned to join Queens Drive near Liverpool College, Mossley Hill. It never did of course

I never realised this - however it is strange the way it feeds into Rathmore Ave (north bound) and is accessed by Templemore (south bound).

Presumably the "more" roads were in place before construction of Brodie Ave?

The construction through to Queens Drive would certainly have changed the landscape around the Elmsley and Palmerston road areas sigificantly.

John

[Cadfael]

I'm always fascinated by the way that Queens Drive ends at a small roundabout in Mossley Hill/Aigburth.

There was plans to continue this road all the way to Aigburth Road but this never happened.

[irishseashipping.com]

I'm always fascinated by the way that Queens Drive ends at a small roundabout in Mossley Hill/Aigburth.

There was plans to continue this road all the way to Aigburth Road but this never happened.

Until Aigburth Vale was blocked off to build those maisonettes which I think happened around 1971 ish there was almost direct access to Aigburth Road.

I never understood the logic of blocking Aigburth Vale which was very much a through route and as a consequence forcing traffice to go round the bottom part of Carnatic Road into Victoria Road / Ashfield Road. Just really wasn't logical!

John

[Waterways]

Brodie Ave was planned to join Queens Drive near Liverpool College, Mossley Hill. It never did of course

Maybe because some very large and expensive houses, with rich and influential people in them, would need demolishing.

[Waterways]

Kings Drive is probably the best example in Liverpool.

Start of Kings Drive is a dual carriageway until a different council got in and decided that just past (what is now Sainsburys), that we didn't need a dual carriageway so we'll keep it to single lane.

A massive section of grass appears here but then another council got in and decided that near the bottom of Kings Drive, they'd have a dual carriageway again.

And then lastly, another council got in and decided that the roundabout at the bottom of Kings Drive wasn't going to happen, nor was the cut through the loop line which should have joined the other side of Kings Drive up (single lane - massive grassy area).

The biggest fun and games is where Hunts Cross Avenue stops at one side, didn't link to the supposed roundabout, and the other section of Hunts Cross Avenue is as wide as a motorway yet is classed as a 'side' road!

Maps of the world, street map search - powered by Multimap

Those boulevards were designed with wide central grass reservations to have a twin tram tracks. Menlove, Mather, Utting Aves, etc had trams in the centre.

Hunts X Av was supposed to merge onto Woolton Rd at Gatacre Brow and I believe Woolton road was to be a boulevard too, going onto Queens Drive. Hunts X Ave is a boulevard and is a dead end just before the brow, with buildings between the end and the Brow. At the other "far" end, not where it meets Kings Drive, Hunts X Ave stops at Woolton Golf course, This was to continue over to Speke Rd, making one boulevard from Queens Drive using Woolton Rd then Hunts X Ave at Gateacre and then onto Speke. Large sections were built.

Kings Drive was to sweep right into Garston and provision was made for that right through to Garston - the other Woolton Rd and other Allerton Rd running into Horrocks Ave at Garston are the continuation and all one long continuous wide reservation boulevard, crossing Menlove Ave, Mather Ave, Brodie Ave and Speak Rd boulevards as well as Garston tram sheds

John Brodie designed the boulevards in the Liverpool's suburbs. And they all were to have trams in the centre as many did. He viewed the tram and the boulevards as social engineering, to get people out into clean fresh suburbs from the overcrowded slums in the centre. The fast trams would keep people in touch with the centre.

Trams were abandoned in 1957 and the nice wide boulevards were left. Menlove Ave has mature tress all around the space now. Utting, Townsend Aves etc should have had more trees planted as these sometimes look wide and windswept.

Merseyrail has taken over from trams and can be extensively extended using disused track, trackbed and stations. The districts where Merseyrail does not serve, the boulevards can be dug up and cheap cut and cover tunnels put under, with trains just under the surface and station platforms a few steps down - as they did in Paris and Budapest. Stations there are at bus stop intervals.

We possess in the shape of our underground Merseyrail system an absolute jewel that should be the centre of all of our transport plans. Our problem is we do not make the most of what we already have and what others cities drool over. The city has no idea how to use this legacy of disused rail and boulevard infrastructure to extend Merseyrail and give the Liverpool region a highly comprehensive rapid transit rail system - think London Tube. All that is needed is an overall plan and this can be staged in starting from the centre using nearly 4 miles of disused tunnels.

Because of his work on Liverpool's boulevards, John Brodie was asked to design those in New Deli.

[AntiPathos]

Very informative post, WW. Thanks for taking the time to type it.

[Waterways]

Further south is the over engineered road leading to Speke Hall - Speke Hall Ave. Whilst this has come into its own since the expansion of the airport - how many can remember back in the years prior to the mid 80s when this was a dual carraigeway to nowhere despit it having been built in the late 1930s.

Dunlops was around there. Previously the Rootes aircraft plant. It assembled and tested US planes in WW2 that came over in knock down form, mainly P51 Mustangs. The boulevard would have been very handy for trucking the planes in from the docks. The boulevard was handy for traffic going through Hale village to Widnes.

The boulevard was meant to service factories that were never built, as airport expansion was marked up in the 1950s.

[Ged]

Drinking fountains were also placed at strategic points on Brodies boulevards too (usually at x roads with other main roads) and property developers had to pay a frontage tax to build houses along these 'exclusive' stretches and so making them self financing.

[Waterways]

Drinking fountains were also placed at strategic points on Brodies boulevards too (usually at x roads with other main roads) and property developers had to pay a frontage tax to build houses along these 'exclusive' stretches and so making them self financing.

Amazing. Who wants to live on a dual carriagway these days?

[Ged]

Aye. Traffic wasn't so bad back then eh but it meant the rich could move between towns easier, not as in stateley home rich of course

[Waterways]

Drinking fountains were also placed at strategic points on Brodies boulevards too (usually at x roads with other main roads) and property developers had to pay a frontage tax to build houses along these 'exclusive' stretches and so making them self financing.

The tax is a good idea and used in other countries to finance public works projects. If temporary property tax was put on the "sale" of homes in the immediate vicinity of London's underground Jubilee Line underground stations, they would have paid for the line about 4 times over. Property prices went up by around 25% in many cases being so close to the tube station.

Some tax like that should be used to extend Merseyrail.

[tpoo22]

[QUOTE=irishseashipping.com;153348]

Kings Drive is probably the best example in Liverpool.

Yes this is a good example checking it out on Google Earth one can see just how strange it is. I presume a similar fate befel Princess Drive - dual carraigeway at the Deysbrook and Huyton ends but strangely single carraigeway in the middle though wide enough to provide for DC all the way.

John

Princess Drive is an odd one, considering all of that was pretty much a blank canvas when the roads were laid out. I'm not sure where it was intended to go, it just kind of peters out at the Deysbrook end. Looking at Google Earth the Huyton end dual-carriageway bit starts 'over the border' in Knowsley.