In the winter of 2011/12 the Hammersmith Flyover on the A4 road heading from Central London towards Heathrow had restrictions placed on it as an emergency measure due to unforeseen deterioration in the structure. Around £10m was spent on the emergency work to keep the flyover usable for some years.
A group of local architects proposed that the best way to deal with the Hammersmith Flyover was to replace it with a ‘flyunder’, a tunnel running through Hammersmith for the A4 road. This scheme got some traction with the media and council, as this BBC report from May 2013 shows.
In the wake of the Mayor’s Road Task Force report, which had some focus on the A4 corridor, Hammersmith and Fulham council have appointed a champion, created a webpage for comments, organised a summit and created some groups to discuss the flyover of which we are involved in one. The plan is to come up with a proposal before the local elections in 2014 to pass to TfL to develop the fuller plan.
Meanwhile, the Hammersmith Flyover sits being repaired at great expense by TfL, and they tell the construction press it will be “open for traffic for decades to come” after a combined repair cost of around £70m