History
It was first planned by Herbert Manzoni in the 1943 and an Act of Parliament permitting construction was passed in 1946. Due to financial controls, the first part of the ring road, Smallbrook Queensway, did not begin construction until 1957 and was completed in 1960. The entire ring road was opened by Elizabeth II in 1971.
However, since the 1990s, some of Queensway has been altered in order to reverse the earlier strict separation of road and pedestrian traffic with a view to providing a more attractive environment for pedestrians, deter through traffic, and reducing the severance effects of the Inner Ring Road. A number of the altered junctions are in regeneration areas, such as Masshouse. In early 2008, the St Chads Queensway area near the St. Chad's Cathedral was modified to remove pedestrian underpasses and bring all pedestrian and car traffic back on to the traditional street level.
The road previously consisted on the following roads (anticlockwise from A38(M) approach (Aston Expressway):
- St Chads Queensway (now A38)
- Lancaster Street Queensway
- St Chads Circus Queensway
- Paradise Circus Queensway, below Birmingham Central Library
- Great Charles Queensway (now A38)
- Suffolk Street Queensway (now A38)
- Holloway Circus Queensway (now A38)
- Smallbrook Queensway (unclassified)
- St Martin's Queenway (demolished to make way for new Bullring development)
- Moor Street Queensway (unclassified) rebuilt into "Bus mall" renamed Moor Street Ringway
- James Watt Queensway (unclassified)
- Masshouse Circus Queensway, formerly roundabout over James Watt Queensway (demolished)
Read more about this topic: A4400 Road
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