SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Having travelled in my car today from my house in Rodley to Lawnswood, it struck me that there were possibly much greater plands for the Leeds outer ring road at one stage, due to the large grassed areas at either side of the road, especially at Horsforth, indeed the bridge that goes over the ring road between the Shell petrol station and the industrial site by McDonalds looks to have been constructed to take a dual carrigeway underneath.Indeed, the land by Rodley roundabout, at the rear of where I live, has just been transferred in ownership from the councils highways dept, to parks and gardens, and is about to have 4500 trees planted in it.Does anybody know anymore about this possible ring road expansion, and reasons for it's apparent abandonment???

Hi chamusdarrachI live near the bridge you mention and I wouldnt say its particularly wide although they must have built it with a view to accommodating future road widening. There are lots of pictures of the aforementioned bridge during its construction on the Leodis website. I've noticed that in quite a lot of places the outer ringroad is flanked by large grass verges and extra wide footpaths on both sides. Apparently tho schemes undertaken to widen roads to accommodate rising vehicle numbers seem to aggravate the problem eventually rather than solve it. The government seems to do a lot to discourage car ownership / use for commuting while doing little to encourage the use of public transport or indeed improve it...