I have always wondered why have they left Junction 7 of the M23 in the state that it has been for the last 30 years? I mean the government know that the M23 is not going to go any further north into London. That bridge that is waiting for the M23 to go north I think was the biggist waste of money by someone in the South of England. But now I am glad that the government are thinking at last about doing something to that junction and getting rid of that bridge.

Map Link

There's no plans to change junction 7 - the plans for that area are for a roundabout a little way to the north which would allow northbound traffic to u-turn and access the M23 more easily.

If you think the bridge is a waste of money, wouldn't it just be another waste of money to tear it down? Bear in mind first, that it is not in the way of anything else, and second, that there's now a motorway maintenance compound on top of it.

No point spending more money to no good effect.

I'd rather see the motorway extended over that bridge, but only to link with the existing A23 slightly further north.



This is mainly to complete J7 and to provide traffic from the south a route to the M25. It also provides a bypass for Hooley.

One thing that's not generally realised is the fact that there's two bridges...

The southern one had the maintenance compound on it. The northern one is utterly empty.

Although the idea of extending the M23 any further north was dropped long ago, up untill the mid 90s there were serious plans to by-pass both Hooley and Coulsdon to a D2 standard. If it had gone ahead as planned the Hooley bypasss would have been very similar to that shown by Lewes.

Under a roads review however each scheme was removed from the national programme and then passed to the relevent local authority. While Coulsdon eventually went ahead (allbut reducded to S2 + Bus lane by TFL), Surrey CC decided that a by-pass of Hooley would cause too many protests from the locals (given that the houses in Hooley off the A23 are worth a consderable ammount of money and a new road visable from the garden is hardley a selling point). Abandoning the by-pass also made them look 'green' and saved money

Its always seemed almost comical to me, the fact that a huge swathe of southern london doesnt have an arterial route beyond a single carriageway that passes through various town centres.
I can only imagine first time visitors flying into Gatwick who might go by Taxi to central London thinking either the taxi drivers taking them somewhere else, or sitting there in disbelief that this is one of the main routes into one of the worlds foremost cities.
Its a shame they didnt build a bypass for Hooley and Coulsdon, id always thought a tidy D2 could just about run between and then above or below those two rail lines and meet the A23 in Purley.

i like the bridge. it's a sign of optimism!

I think the fastest route from Gatwick to the West End is still probably via Leatherhead, the 243, Hook and Robin Hood. The 217/240 option from Reigate up to Tolworth used to be an alternative but the 30s and 40s on the 217 have sadly reduced its' value as a genuine alternative for Sussex to West End journeys.

All that's challenging is the steep descent from the "M23 Bridge" down to the A23.

Since only one bridge is needed the compound could stay on the South side and the North bridge be used!

Traffic for the A23 South could leave on the present slip and keep left.
Traffic for the A23 North could cross on the unused bridge and join the A23.

Why? There'd still be nothing stopping traffic coming off the M23 where it does now from carrying on as normal. You've added a right-turn loop but it hardly needs bypassing by a huge new section of mainline.



But you've used both bridges. The bridge crossing the southbound A23 has the maintenance compound, but you've gone over it!

I think the A23 is a joke and will contribute to the long term decline of the Brixton/Streatham/Norbury/Mitcham/Croydon/Purley corridor that has occured over the last 30 years.

I left 5 years ago when the transition from leafy suburbs to inner city hellholes was well under way.

What is needed at the very minimum is a D3 loop round hooley continuing with a D3 coulsdon bypass then the road upto purley widened to D3 (I heard a rumour that the reason the houses are set so far back on that road is that there is a clause in the deeds requiring them to give up part of their garden to the road when required), a D2 flyover at Purley to the Purley way (the widening for the southern end of it is done), widen the Purley way to D3 with an elevated section from the airport to Ikea, then swing off alongside the tramway with D2 and across mitcham common then in a 1 mile mainly tunnel sectino under pollards hill area emerging where the A23 widens from S2 to S4 north of Norbury, widen the existing S4 road (buildings already well back here) to the existing Streaham Common D3 section to D3, then widen the railway bridge at Streatham, make the existing A23 from there to the odeon one way southbound and put a new short spur from the railway bridge to Ambleside Avenue (already one way S3) make part of Garrads lane one way and one of the roads from garrads lane to the odeon one way.

That gives you D3/D2 all the way to the south circular.

The addition of a central reservation plus a bit of pavement management would give you D2 all the way to the A3 at Kennington as the road is S4

Is it that difficult?

Ok

Yes, I've heard a lot of stories of very serious decline over the last ten years, in what are not inner city areas but formerly prosperous suburbs.



I think the South Circular is too ambitious, and besides, the SCR is no kind of way to terminate a route like that. My firm belief is that there is no reasonable improvement that you could make that would make the A23 acceptable.

My solution would be to cut your losses and accept that the A23 can't be fixed as a London radial, and instead just make it work as a Croydon radial. Widen it on the easy bit to Purley Cross (or is if Fiveways? I forget), then head the dual carriageway east to join on to the DC on the south side of the Croydon ring road. I believe land exists to extend that road towards the A23 so it's not too hard. Then your decent-standard road has a terminus, is workable, and doesn't encourage stupid amounts of traffic on the A23 further north.

My ideal solution would be more like a large nuclear warhead.

Generally, most people from the south coast going to Central London take the train. If we drive there, we detour to the A3, as it's a decent standard D3 that goes pretty far in. The A217's an option too.

The only real reason to use the A23 is to go to Ikea, and even then we go along some back streets.

Sorry I miss understood what was being siad about "North and South" bridges. I thought North and South was refering to the Carage ways, not the two bridges as in one further north than the other!!

At the moment, conjestion is casued by traffic wanting to get to the A23 South from the M23. The talk of rounderbouts is madness!!

The've made a start!

Nearly finished the £33m Coulsdon by-pass, mind you not D3, I think its D1 + a bus lane.

S2 + [anything but a car] lane would be the best description

If you're going to change the junction you may as well do this.
http://chavster01.fotopic.net/p31443301.html

Oddly enough it was the cancellation of the M23 and the Ringway 2 that kickstarted the decline.

The GLC/DfT bought up thousands of private houses along the routes of the M23 and M15, when they were cancelled the GLC did not sell them but kept them on as council houses radically changing the areas they were in .

Also when the M23 was finally abandoned in the 1990s a lot of the land reserved for it was used for social housing. There is a particularly interesting social housing development around the back of Streatham Vale which led to police incident boards for shootings etc appearing in Streatham vale from then on.

While I do not want pass comments on the respective parties Streatham, Mitcham and Morden and Croydon North parliamentary constituencies were all safe tory seats in 1987, streatham fell in 1992 and the others in 1997. They are all now ultrasafe Labour seats where Labour get the sort of majority they used to get in Ebbw Vale. The demographic change has been massive.




I agree. That is sensible and I understand Croydon Council were not at all happy when the M23 was cancelled. AIUI they intended to build a D2 link road eastward from the M23/A2022 junction to the croydon ring road
southern leg.

There must be something going on at this junction as I had a look in the London AA 2006 edition map and there was an under construction line across this junction and round just to the south of Hooley.

Its been like that since the 1970s, the under construction road is the motorway that was built over the junction but never opened as it ends in a field!