M25 Junction 10 to Junction 16 Smart Motorway

[Chris5156]

There has to be a smarter way of ending the dual carriageway bit of West Hill than this: https://goo.gl/maps/t3CiPp3M4RB2

Well indeed. The TfL route network is full of things that ought to have been revised 20 or more years ago, but have just been habitually repainted in what provisional manner was laid out in the 60s.

[Micro The Maniac]

The only way I can see for this to change would be to trunk the major roads in London, handing them back to Highways England...

Given that the direction of travel with the railways is the opposite - with more routes, to outside of London - being handed over to TfL, I suspect handing roads back is unlikely. Even if HE wanted them!

[A320Driver]

I drive J10-16 regularly, and took a good look at the option the other day for D5 between J10 and J12. As others say above, between 10 and 11 this would be hugely expensive and disruptive to build, what with the long elevated section at Byfleet including bridges over railway and river. There’s also 2 transmission pylons immediately adjacent to the carriageway which would require relocating.

The only viable long term solution is to build the M31. This would relieve J10-15 of all traffic from the channel ports and points south of London, heading to the southwest, Bristol and South Wales. Given that we seem to be tentatively thinking about more ambitious tunnelling schemes, the M31 could be constructed with a tunnelled section under Horsell/Woking which is the main sticking point for the route.

[Jayck]

All seems to have gone quiet on this project. I realise that covid has meant that people aren't necessarily working on planning these things right now, but even so, the highways england website still claims a works start date of 2020/2021, so surely we would have expected detailed plans to emerge at least a year ago, no?

I'd have thought the cost benefit on this project would be very high, so why the hold up? Anyone have any ideas?

[jervi]

All seems to have gone quiet on this project. I realise that covid has meant that people aren't necessarily working on planning these things right now, but even so, the highways england website still claims a works start date of 2020/2021, so surely we would have expected detailed plans to emerge at least a year ago, no?

I'd have thought the cost benefit on this project would be very high, so why the hold up? Anyone have any ideas?

Well A23 Hooley Improvements were meant to start in April/May 2020, but absolutely no news about that. Think most things have been placed on the backburner initially as lockdown started, and not everything has had progress resumed, plus how everything is outsourced to many different companies isn't going to help the situation.

[jackal]

Most schemes have been pushed back over the last few years due to budgetary constraints. Coronavirus is a very minor impact on road schemes compared to this. On the bright side schemes like these often go straight from complete radio silence to construction.

[Jayck]

Most schemes have been pushed back over the last few years due to budgetary constraints. Coronavirus is a very minor impact on road schemes compared to this. On the bright side schemes like these often go straight from complete radio silence to construction.

Hmm, sounds plausible, I just thought it odd that they hadn't updated the web page in a long while and yet it says they'll be starting to build it soon.