M25 - Infrastructure/economic bias towards N/S/W sections?

[BF2142]

The areas served by the southern, western and northern sections of the M25 are more wealthy than the eastern areas. These areas additionally benefit for more junction access to the motorway and do not have to pay a toll to drive between Herts and Surrey. Could this be mitigated by any or all of the following?

1. Does the DartCharge unfairly penalise business travellers and make Essex/Kent a less attractive proposition for businesses to relocate to?
1a.Does the lack of an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 place Essex at an economic disadvantage? This obviously results in longer journey times for clockwise traffic.
1b. Is investment into Essex hindered by the absence of an M12? Certainly a cursory look at map by a foreign investor might give that impression.
2. Are the northern, western and southern sections more attractive to investors because of the higher number of junctions.
3. Is there a good case for closing some of the junctions in the N/W/S on traffic flow and environmental grounds, thus making the M25 less attractive in those areas to relocaters and investors?
4. Is there a good case for imposing a full toll across the entire M25 to eliminate the disbenefit of the DartCharge and to discourage short local and regional trips across the entire route?

[Fluid Dynamics]

I am not sure the argument is so clear. I live closest to the SE segment of the M25. Many journeys north and into Essesx/East Anglia are also impacted by Dartford queues and charges. I would also argue the point about better junctions access. There is a significant gap between Junctions 5 and 6, and 5 being limited access causes issues with west East Sussex/East Surrey and Kent easily accessing the M20 eastbound as there is no access to the M26 from the A21 northbound. Also isn't the M26 westbound to M25 J6 the longest stretch of UK motorway between junctions?

[trickstat]

I would say that the main reason that the eastern part of the M25 has fewer junctions is due to there having been fewer existing roads suitable for having a junction compared with the other parts.

[JammyDodge]

The areas served by the southern, western and northern sections of the M25 are more wealthy than the eastern areas.

There are also way more people served by these sections, basically any traffic from the North, Midlands, West and Wales; in addition to local traffic

1. Does the DartCharge unfairly penalise business travellers and make Essex/Kent a less attractive proposition for businesses to relocate to?

DartCharge is there as a congestion charge, to reduce demand due to a limited supply.
Also, Essex/Kent will likely be getting a new crossing between the two, in the form of the Lower Thames Crossing.
Arguably investment in a non-London centric rail link between the two would be better at reducing congestion on the crossing, and provide additional rail freight routings that avoid London, for ports like Tilbury, London Gateway and Sheerness

1a.Does the lack of an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 place Essex at an economic disadvantage? This obviously results in longer journey times for clockwise traffic.

No. A shortcut to connect the M25 and A12, would only save ~3miles off the journey (3mins @ 60mph). The M26 saves nearly 10miles, and serves a completely different purpose. It provides a strategically important link between the Port of Dover/Channel Tunnel and the rest of the country (basically anything west of the M11)

1b. Is investment into Essex hindered by the absence of an M12? Certainly a cursory look at map by a foreign investor might give that impression.

I'm sure that an investor will do more research than a quick glance at a map, and will have people working for them do said research and present to them a list of options.
Also, new motorways are dead, long live the totally not a motorway in disguise as an A-road

2. Are the northern, western and southern sections more attractive to investors because of the higher number of junctions.

Yes, but only because of geography.
These sections serve as access to the rest of the country. That's why there are more junctions, and more radial routes heading out of London.
If you want better access to the rest of the UK, then why wouldn't you locate nearer to those junctions/routes if you wanted to be based around London

3. Is there a good case for closing some of the junctions in the N/W/S on traffic flow and environmental grounds, thus making the M25 less attractive in those areas to relocaters and investors?

Your kind of understanding these sections problems,
The main issue is the mixing of local and express traffic
A way to help would be to create express lanes that only link the M26-M23-A3-M3-M4-M40-M1, with local lanes that connect to all junctions. The only issue, is that you would be nearly doubling the footprint of the road in many sections, basically to Quad 3 Lanes and require the rebuild of the busiest junctions on the road.
If you want to look at a better way to reduce traffic on the M25, invest in more rail capacity and the quality of service, and local public transport to connect more people to it

4. Is there a good case for imposing a full toll across the entire M25 to eliminate the disbenefit of the DartCharge and to discourage short local and regional trips across the entire route?

With the current set-up, no
However, if you created express and local lanes, then yes, having a variable congestion charge on the local lanes would be an idea to be explored

[WHBM]

There is an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 Chelmsford bypass, from the Dartford Crossing direction, via the A13 and A130, which is wholly modern freeflow dual carriageway between these points and quicker. It does alleviate the remaining A12 traffic.

I don't know where this periodic thing comes from about closing motorway junctions to thwart users you don't like; if that happens the traffic is then diverted by local and less appropriate routes, whose inhabitants somehow never seem to have been consulted when such ideas are put. There's a lot of wasted mileage around the Essex side of the M25, precisely because of poor access to the M11/M25, which badly impacts places like the main road through Epping, and indeed the roads through Epping Forest.

[Bryn666]

I would say that the main reason that the eastern part of the M25 has fewer junctions is due to there having been fewer existing roads suitable for having a junction compared with the other parts.

The Ringways have a fair bit to answer for too - remember that the Dartford Crossing was one of many proposed Thames crossings. The fact the others never happened is why we're in the mess we are today.

[Phil]

(1) To a small degree yes - but not to the extent that it affect things like rates of employment on either side.

(1a) Not really - The congestion on the A12 probably has more of an impact.

(1b) Not much sign of that - although there is a more general issue that FAR to many of a key strategic roads in the UK are bodge job upgraded A roads! In any of European country roads like the A34, A43, A14, A12 would have been upgraded to motorway or expressway standard - not left as a mix of varying quality upgrades festooned with dogy junctions.

(2) No sign of that - companies don't invest just because there happens to be a motorway there. Investment is driven by things access to labour, land purchase costs, planning restrictions, government taxation rates / grants far more than it needing a motorway nearby. In any case the southern section of the M25 is basically rural with little in the way of industry and although the Northern section comes closer to London its not a driver of investment. The western section of the M25 is a little different in that because of the proximity of Heathrow - and the easy access to the airport / high tech businesses in the Thames valley it provides. That said its not the motorway itself which drives investment, its actually the airport (and related industry) plus the high tech industries of the Thames Valley (in them,selves created due to the airport rather than the motorway) which is the pull factor.

(3) Yes - but not for the reasons you cite. If the M25 is to properly fullfill its role as a way for traffic from our strategic arterial roads to orbit London the last thing it needs is junction hopping commuters clogging it up. Take junction 11 for example it has no strategic reason to be there in the grand scheme of things... but life is not that simple! The nearby M3 is noticeably lacking in junctions at the London end compared to say, the M4 and as such what junction 11 of the M25 is actually there for is to act as a feeder for the M3. Of course because it exists you then get other people using it to make short hops between M25 junctions (because the M25 forms the only decent road through that bit of Surrey) or commuting to Heathrow etc which further bungs up the M25 to the detriment of strategic traffic. As such junction hopping / commuting flows are now well established it would be political suicide for any branch off Government to close any junctions.

(4) Yes and No, its difficult - largely because radial transport options are so crap. For example the M25 acts as the only link between the high quality A30, M3 and A3 corridors. As such although a good idea in principle as it might discourage junction hopping for it to be remotely acceptable then it would have needed to be there from day one plus parallel half decent roads established as an alternative (e.g. A dualled A312 heading south from the A30 round to Sunbury cross and then across the Thames linking up with the A308 at Esher). Trying to do these things retrospectively is political suicide so it won't happen.

[JohnnyMo]

...
1a.Does the lack of an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 place Essex at an economic disadvantage? This obviously results in longer journey times for clockwise traffic.
...

The M26 predates much of the M25, it was part of a plan to link the M4 near Reading to the Channel ports.

[Bryn666]

I don't know where this periodic thing comes from about closing motorway junctions to thwart users you don't like; if that happens the traffic is then diverted by local and less appropriate routes, whose inhabitants somehow never seem to have been consulted when such ideas are put. There's a lot of wasted mileage around the Essex side of the M25, precisely because of poor access to the M11/M25, which badly impacts places like the main road through Epping, and indeed the roads through Epping Forest.

It depends why you're closing the junctions. I don't think anyone seriously proposes closing junctions to "thwart" users - but for example if you have the ridiculous situation where a set-up like M60 J13 causes no end of trouble for the whole NW quadrant of the ring road and it could be solved overnight by closing the junction... but then you introduce problems elsewhere.

I would rather see through traffic and local traffic separated out - the M25 widenings have never addressed this problem meaning you get cross-national HGVs mixing with Surrey junction hoppers and it simply does not work.

[ChrisH]

In idle moments I have thought about how a local/express setup could work on some parts of the M25. The one which springs to mind for me is between the M40 and M1, where some local carriageways could start at the north with the J19 slips, incorporate J18 and J17 and then braid with some slips to/from the M40 - perhaps using additional arches under the HELCH viaduct north of the M40.

The Essex section of the M25 seems to have too few junctions, especially bearing in mind there is no access to the M11 south of the M25.

[KeithW]

To my way of thinking the M25 is the classic example of London centric thinking when it comes to our road network. If there is anywhere in the country disadvantaged by the road network its Eastern England between the Wash and York. Lincolnshire is one of the biggest counties but has very few high quality D2 roads. The A15, A16 and A17 are a disgrace.

[Phil]

There is an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 Chelmsford bypass, from the Dartford Crossing direction, via the A13 and A130, which is wholly modern freeflow dual carriageway between these points and quicker. It does alleviate the remaining A12 traffic.

I don't know where this periodic thing comes from about closing motorway junctions to thwart users you don't like; if that happens the traffic is then diverted by local and less appropriate routes, whose inhabitants somehow never seem to have been consulted when such ideas are put. There's a lot of wasted mileage around the Essex side of the M25, precisely because of poor access to the M11/M25, which badly impacts places like the main road through Epping, and indeed the roads through Epping Forest.

And how much worse do you think the M25 would get if all that 'local traffic' got dumped on it. The SW quadrant of the M25 shows only too well what happens when you go down that route.

The problem with the M25 (and lots of motorways in general) is they get clogged up by junction hoppers when they are intended as STRATEGIC ROADS built with the intention of performing an 'intercity' function not an all stations stopper.

If places like Epping are suffering then either you build new local roads to cater for movements or invest in PT solutions, not dump the problem on somebody elses doorstep as it were.

[Bryn666]

There is an M26-style shortcut between the M25 and A12 Chelmsford bypass, from the Dartford Crossing direction, via the A13 and A130, which is wholly modern freeflow dual carriageway between these points and quicker. It does alleviate the remaining A12 traffic.

I don't know where this periodic thing comes from about closing motorway junctions to thwart users you don't like; if that happens the traffic is then diverted by local and less appropriate routes, whose inhabitants somehow never seem to have been consulted when such ideas are put. There's a lot of wasted mileage around the Essex side of the M25, precisely because of poor access to the M11/M25, which badly impacts places like the main road through Epping, and indeed the roads through Epping Forest.

And how much worse do you think the M25 would get if all that 'local traffic' got dumped on it. The SW quadrant of the M25 shows only too well what happens when you go down that route.

The problem with the M25 (and lots of motorways in general) is they get clogged up by junction hoppers when they are intended as STRATEGIC ROADS built with the intention of performing an 'intercity' function not an all stations stopper.

If places like Epping are suffering then either you build new local roads to cater for movements or invest in PT solutions, not dump the problem on somebody elses doorstep as it were.

It is quite scary how many planners still refuse to accept that Braess Paradox is a thing, and that you will not ever reach a happy result by continually increasing road capacity without constraints elsewhere - even if build enough roads to reach the maximum possible number of drivers on the roads you still hit the problem that you have not got anywhere to store all those vehicles at the end of their journey.

It brings us nicely back to the argument that car travel, especially in the south east, is the least efficient mode of transport possible because of the spatial consumption and when land costs are astronomical it makes zero sense to be paving over valuable land parcels so people can store empty vehicles on them for 18 hours a day. People commute by car because the M25 is there, so it isn't a stretch to say build alternatives to the M25 - orbital rail links, improved bus services, active travel corridors, etc.

There's a reason we've just built Crossrail instead of a road tunnel under London. One will shift millions of people, the other will just shift traffic jams around.

[pjr10th]

The risk with a charge on the whole M25 is that you push that traffic onto more unsuitable and more dangerous A-roads. With Dartford, there's no real alternative other than going into Central London, so that effect is dampened.

A similar argument exists for example with the Tyne Tunnel. The only alternative going between South and North Tyneside is going into Central Newcastle or the congested A1 (adding the cost of the toll onto your petrol). If the A1 was rffic would divert through central Newcastle or the MetroCentre. olled, traffic

[KeithW]

In idle moments I have thought about how a local/express setup could work on some parts of the M25. The one which springs to mind for me is between the M40 and M1, where some local carriageways could start at the north with the J19 slips, incorporate J18 and J17 and then braid with some slips to/from the M40 - perhaps using additional arches under the HELCH viaduct north of the M40.

The Essex section of the M25 seems to have too few junctions, especially bearing in mind there is no access to the M11 south of the M25.

Well the M25 has junctions with the major roads, the A12, A127 and A13, given that it is strategic road what else would you expect ?

As others have said the strategy with such roads is to SEPARATE strategic and local traffic. One of the main problems with the old M11/A14 was that around Cambridge it was overwhelmed by local traffic between Junction 11 and Huntingdon.

In the North East we have a major problem with the A19 Tees Crossing which is why a new bridge being built for local traffic.

[Mapper89062]

2. Are the northern, western and southern sections more attractive to investors because of the higher number of junctions.
3. Is there a good case for closing some of the junctions in the N/W/S on traffic flow and environmental grounds, thus making the M25 less attractive in those areas to relocaters and investors?

This is a huge part of where the M25 goes wrong - it had to go very close to a number of urban areas and lots of nice unspoilt countryside, which will naturally generate a lot of objections, but when you can just add in a couple of extra junctions to link up to the local road network that give the objectors direct access, a lot of them will suddenly quieten down. This nice, easy fix got used far too many times and so lots of local journeys use the M25 that clearly weren't intended to do so originally. Unfortunately closing a load of junctions isn't going to just make these journeys disappear - you need to invest in alternative options that make sure that people use more efficient modes of transport, or you just end up with all the traffic on even less suitable local roads (many of which the M25 was meant to relieve in the first place...) We also have a load of development close to the M25 as a result of these local junctions that suddenly ends up in the wrong place if the junctions are shut, unless your new public transport initiatives are built as close as they can be to the current route.

Clearly, we have to start thinking big and we have to do it now, before we simply continue to build further and further upon what we did wrong in the past, bringing us even further away from a real long term solution.

[WHBM]

I suppose the shortest hop I do on the M25 is one junction, joining at J14 at Heathrow Terminal 5, but then leaving at J15 onto the M4 into London, or last time heading out first to Gloucestershire then up to The Wirral. But is it somehow proposed to close J14 ? That's to the major UK airport. I presume J15, with another mainstream motorway, would be safe. What alternative route is suggested ?

[mistral]

However did we cope with all that traffic before they opened the M25? Oh thats right - we didn't, as the traffic wasn't all there. Its the ultimate rebuttal to the idea that roads don't generate extra traffic.....

Yawn ..... For how many more years are you going to dredge up this complete fallacy? As has been said before, the roads that run roughly parallel to stretches of the M25 in Surrey, such as the A25, A244, A245, A317 and the A320 have all benefitted substantially from the arrival of the M25. They may still be busy but they're not much busier now than they were 25 years ago. In fact, some like the A25, A317 and the A318 are markedly quieter now than they were in the early 1980s. Surrey towns like Leatherhead, Cobham, Weybridge, Chertsey and Egham desperately needed a decent bypass and they are, on the whole, much less congested now than then because they finally got one.

What's the fallacy?

That Surrey's roads weren't busy until the construction of the M25.

As I have posted on numerous occasions before, the M25 has done an excellent job as acting as a bypass for not only a number of towns in Surrey, but villages and towns elsewhere such as Westerham and Sevenoaks. 30 years on, the A25 through Oxted and Westerham is still quieter now than it was in the late 70s.

These posts may be 15 years old, but the general thrust of them is still much the same. The M25, for all its' failings, has overall been a benefit to many parts of Surrey & Kent that fall within its' corridor.

Unfortunately, public transport to places like Heathrow, Gatwick & Bracknell from many of the towns mentioned above is even worse now than it was in the 2000s. With no reasonable prospect of any orbital rail lines getting built to relieve the pressure on the motorway, it seems that we'll just have to chug on as we're doing right now for a little while longer!

[B1040]

The North, West and SW of London have long been prosperous, from way before the M25.
South of London seems to have prosperous folk who commute. I am not sure whether Crawley counts as "prosperous".
Essex is not particularly impoverished - even in the '80s I could afford to live no nearer to London than the less fashionable parts of Colchester. (OK I could have lived in parts of Southend, but that town's schools were blighted by selection).
From my vantage point in the fens, the M25 seems to have junctions in the right places. Maybe NE London has awkwardness heading West.

[Chris5156]

4. Is there a good case for imposing a full toll across the entire M25 to eliminate the disbenefit of the DartCharge and to discourage short local and regional trips across the entire route?

No, because if you impose a toll you don't get to choose who will be discouraged and who will pay it. All types of journey on the M25 would be discouraged if you tolled it, not just the ones you don't like. And removing any journeys from the M25 will cause additional journeys on the local road network and within London, neither of which is desirable from either an environmental or traffic planning point of view, and none of which can be easily accommodated anyway because there is no spare capacity on the road network in the south east; and will have a negative economic effect because a considerable percentage of journeys will become too expensive, or too difficult, or both, and won't be made any more at all.

The M25 is there to attract traffic away from local roads and away from London. Tolling it would defeat its purpose.