Eastern Section
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Easy for a research project like this to describe, but not very interesting to read about, the eastern side of Ringway 3 was built exactly as planned and exists today. It might not make for compelling reading, but it does at least help out with the traffic situation, which is more than can be said for the likes of the North Cross Route.
Continues from R3 Northern Section
M12 and A12
A127 Southend Arterial Road
M13 or A13
Dartford Tunnel under the Thames
Local connections to Dartford
A2, M2 or A2(M)
A20, M20 or A20(M)
Continues to R3 Southern Section
The route
Continuing from the Northern Section of Ringway 3, the interchange at Brentwood was to connect with the A12 and probably M12. From here the route would continue to follow the line of the present-day M25 to interchange with the A127 and A13 to reach the Thames. Had the vage and distant plans for the M13 come to fruition, it would have interchanged with Ringway 3 closer to the A127 junction, near North Ockendon.
From West Thurrock, the motorway would pass through the existing Dartford tunnel (probably not as a motorway, given the way that the M25 surrenders at this point), then continue southward on the existing motorway line, interchanging the A2/M2 and A20/M20. Beyond this point the route would have been very different indeed.
It seems quite clear that this section of M16 was planned in detail while the Ringway plans were alive, then simply built as planned and assigned the number M25 instead.
The question here is not the usual one ("where would it have gone?"). Its exact route and form are known, because it exists, but that just means being faced with a more difficult question: "was that it?".
To the east of London, Ringway 4 merged with Ringway 3, so there are only three ringways to the east of the city. Despite this, the M16 was to be sent through the Dartford Tunnel, a road link constructed in the early 1960s as a connection between north-west Kent and south-west Essex. At the time the road was proposed, the Tunnel was already choked with its existing traffic load, and was not in a good position to have two Ringways of motorway traffic forced through it.
Perhaps there were grand plans to expand it, as had to happen after the completion of the M25 when the Queen Elizabeth II bridge was opened to double capacity. Nothing like this is mentioned, though.
It seems to be part of a wider problem with cross-Thames links to the east of London: Ringway 1's East Cross Route was to have its three or four lanes of motorway traffic squeezed through a pair of two-lane tubes at Blackwall (as continues to happen today). So perhaps Dartford shouldn't come as such a surprise after all.
