Bank Holiday traffic

[Bfivethousand]

At last, normal service has resumed after months of drought.
07.30 - first queue of the day at Amesbury, followed later by Wylye, Chicklade, Sparkford, Ilminster and the Blackdown Hills.

I was going to do the A303 from Sparkford down to Exeter on Friday. Diverted through Yeovil, Crewkerne and Chard instead. Far easier, much more picturesque.

Staggered to find that the Blackdown Hills queue was pretty much entirely caused by that Starbucks / ex-Little Chef to the east of Honiton.

[SteveA30]

By 7am Saturday, the M5 was already queuing north of Falfield J14 from Bristol so, I set off for Gloucestershire. From Bridgwater northwards, it was stop/start. At Edithmead, I took the A38 there just to see if anything was happening in Somerset. Yep.

[SteveA30]

A café owner at Brent Knoll said they had been queuing since 08.30 there. A lot of traffic joined the A38 from the A370 from WSM, indicating an M5 bail-out from there. Still queues back to Bristol with gaps here and there. Gloucestershire can wait for another time.... perhaps.

Further south at Willand, near Cullompton, the M5 copes and the old A38 slumbers on.....

[M19]

I set off for a camping trip this morning from Kettering to Invegarry at 5:15am. The M6 was empty. It was busy on the A82 past Loch Lomond, but managed the 460-mile trip in under 10 hours with a couple of stops.

[fras]

On Friday evening I looked at the Traffic England map and I don't think I have ever seen so much red ink ! And a lot of black indicating no movement. This was around 11 pm too !

[Glenn A]

I can remember driving on the M6 from Carlisle to Scotland last year on Late May Bank Holiday and the traffic being very heavy and about a third of vehicles being motorhomes or cars hauling caravans. I'd imagine a lot of people were travelling north to places like Loch Lomond and Pitlochry( where I spent two holidays in my youth).

[multiraider2]

I set out on the Friday evening and knew that there was no way I could realistically take to get me to my destination quicky. The M25 in the south west quadrant was being depicted as awful and I had no intention of going that way in any case. But it took me nearly an hour to get to the A3 at Tolworth; plus an estimated 30 minutes of crawling traffic at the Guildford bypass, slow at Farnham, slow on the M3 etc. so that the journey of 65.5 miles from my house to the Micheldever Station turn on the A303 took the best part of three and a half hours. After that it was fairly plain sailing and the A30, Ford, A36, A362, A361 route to the stop for the evening in Glastonbury which was another almost 80 miles was completed in slightly less than an hour and a half.

[Norfolktolancashire]

We drove down the M5 on Friday 1st June this year and noted a near solid queue going northeast between Cullompton and Clevedon, luckily the other way. That is around 50 miles!

It will have been all the traffic coming from Cornwall/Devon after the half term break, Friday being one of the main "changeover" days for holiday lets.

There were no obvious incidents either, so no idea how this could have been avoided as it is already D3.

[Ruperts Trooper]

We drove down the M5 on Friday 1st June this year and noted a near solid queue going northeast between Cullompton and Clevedon, luckily the other way. That is around 50 miles!

It will have been all the traffic coming from Cornwall/Devon after the half term break, Friday being one of the main "changeover" days for holiday lets.

There were no obvious incidents either, so no idea how this could have been avoided as it is already D3.

Way back, we used to go from the Midlands to Cornwall every summer both solo and towing the tin tent - soon learnt that Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were purgatory - much better Saturday afternoon/overnight and Sunday morning.

Now when towing up to the far north of Scotland, we leave late Saturday afternoon and spend the night at Red Moss on the ex-A74 just north of Abington, then continue north on Sunday morning getting up to Inverness for an early lunch and on to our chosen site by mid-afternoon - car traffic is much lower then and HGV traffic almost non-existent.

[SteveA30]

We drove down the M5 on Friday 1st June this year and noted a near solid queue going northeast between Cullompton and Clevedon, luckily the other way. That is around 50 miles!

Thanks for the tip! I'll investigate in July/August to see if the A38 takes any of it, as it already does southbound.

[Norfolktolancashire]

We drove down the M5 on Friday 1st June this year and noted a near solid queue going northeast between Cullompton and Clevedon, luckily the other way. That is around 50 miles!

Thanks for the tip! I'll investigate in July/August to see if the A38 takes any of it, as it already does southbound.

I know from experience that the A38 through Highbridge northbound does!

[B1018 A120 M11]

OK, so I hope this is appropriate for this thread. On Friday (yes, the August bank holiday) my family and I are planning to head from Cambridge to Ashurst, in the New Forest, to go camping. I can't leave until sometime between 2.30 and 3pm due to work commitments, but my wife and 6-year old son are both on holiday at present and are free to leave whenever. The journey's a pretty awful one; not that far in miles, but as London is right slap in the way, we're going to have to perform either a 180-degree arc round the M25, a journey right through the middle, or a massive diversion to the west to avoid the metropolis altogether. Unsurprisingly, this afternoon the Bank Holiday doom merchants have started to ramp up, with stories on Sky News about the massive gridlock that UK roads will suffer on the day, and predictions of journeys taking four times as long as usual.

How best to tackle this? I see lots of alternatives, but am not sure about the best way forward out of all of them. Here are a few:

1) We all leave together at about 3pm, and just suck it up on the M25.
The report I just heard, and bitter experience, suggests that the M25 will not be fun on Friday afternoon - especially not with a bored six-year-old in the car. Not keen on this approach.

2) We go through London.
I'm a big fan of doing this, and find at busy times or on busy days it often works out better than enduring the M25 car park. I know a variety of routes and back-up routes through from the M11 or the A1 to the A316/M3, too. However, when I do this, I prefer to leave as early as I can to beat rush hour, or leave after the morning commuters have evaporated. On Friday I can't do that, so I'm not so much in favour of this on this occasion.

3) We go west.
I like this idea too... until I follow it all the way through. My in-laws live near Bicester, and I know the journey there very well (M11/A428/A421/A4421). From there it's a skip to the A34, and we could in theory just follow that all the way south to the M3 and Southampton. However... I can't imagine it's going to be much fun around the M3/M27 junctions on Friday, either. And indeed the A34 terminal roundabout at Winchester, whatever it's called again (Winnell?), is probably going to be fairly fruity then too. The worst thing would be to go miles out of our way by tacking across to Bicester, only to find that the A34 round Oxford and at Winchester, and the M3/M27 at Southampton, are as bad or worse than the M25 stuff we were trying to avoid by missing out London. Then we'll have gone further but for no demonstrable gain. Who can tell me what the A34 is likely to be like on Friday? I'm guessing the answer is probably... 'bad'.

4) I... well, 'SABRE-ise'
Also known as finding lots of alternative routes to miss out the black spots, some of which are WAAAAY further around but might be quicker given the jammed state the 'fast' routes are probably going to be in. Like many here, I don't mind travelling further if you keep moving, aren't stuck in jams you can't get out of (as on motorways), and, even better, if you have further alternatives up your sleeve if you do encounter jams on your diversionary route.I have a plan of sorts in mind for this (see below).

At the time of writing, the current favoured approach is actually to do something completely different, namely: send my wife and son, who, remember, can travel any time on Friday, off to the New Forest at around 10am Friday, either via the M25 or via Bicester and the A34, in the interests of minimising the traffic they might encounter. Then I journey to meet them after 3pm by train, travelling through London. The campsite we're heading for is right next to a mainline train station with direct services to and from Waterloo, so it's not a bad plan. And the chances are they'll have a much better, and hopefully less interrupted journey to the New Forest than they would if they waited for me to finish work and we all leave together.

The question is then just: should they risk the M25 on Friday morning after rush hour from Cambridge, or STILL go west and via Bicester and the A34? And should I 'SABRE-ise' any aspects of that route for them to minimise the risk? They could even conceivably go over to my wife's parents near Bicester Thursday evening and set off fresh and early at 9-10am down the A34 on Friday. Perhaps then they could go straight there via Winchester and the M3/M27 without too much trouble. But if I heed the Sky news report — which basically suggests fire and brimstone on all the motorways of the UK from dawn to dusk Friday — it might be prudent to tweak some of that route. Below are my latest thoughts on that:

The Western route, SABRE-ised:
M11/Madingley/A428/via St Neots to miss out the awful A1 section and Black Cat/A421 to Milton Keynes/rat run through MK to avoid black spots like the A421 terminal roundabout at M1 junction 13/A421 to Finmere/A4421 to Bicester/*possible overnight stop Thursday*/A41/A34/Bullington Cross/A30/B3084/cut through to A27 via Kent's Oak/A27/Gardiner's Lane via Tatchbury Mount/A3090 (which is the old A31, right?)/A36 via Ower/A31 briefly/back lanes to Ashurst campsite.

Is that overkill? Should my wife and son just suck up the M25 or the A34/M3/M27 all the way...? And although I've edited out Winnell and Southampton by using the A30 and A3090/A31, will they just get unavoidably stuck on the northern A34 round Oxford, which I *haven't* found a sensible route around...? I would welcome the input of anyone with experience of these routes at busy times/bank holidays...!

[Johnathan404]

The rule in Hampshire is never try to head south or west on a summer’s Friday evening. To attempt to do so on the bank holiday is masochistic.

They want to be arriving before 2.

[Ruperts Trooper]

I'm not risking the M25 on Friday!

We're travelling from the Midlands to Dunsfold Wings and Wheels, south of Guildford, so I'll have to recall my map-reading skills to ignore the sat-nav to get from High Wycombe to Farnborough and then cut back east through the Surrey Hills to arrive by midday.

[lorenzo]

On Friday (yes, the August bank holiday) my family and I are planning to head from Cambridge to Ashurst . . .

I'm favouring option four (especially with the rest of the family overnighting in Bicester). I'm sure they'll be able to find plenty to amuse themselves near Ashurst whilst they wait for you to rock up (short train ride down to Lymington to look at boats etc.)

If you do go for this option remember the best way by tube from King's Cross to Waterloo is counter-intuitively changing at Oxford Circus (cross platform).

Have a great holiday.

[Herned]

Have you tried putting the route into google maps and changing the departure/arrival times? If you set it for leaving this Friday at 3pm it shows where will be horrible (no prizes for guessing). Presumably that is standard Friday traffic and not bank holiday getaway traffic, but you can mess around with it and see what looks best

[Nicholas]

The rule in Hampshire is never try to head south or west on a summer’s Friday evening. To attempt to do so on the bank holiday is masochistic.

They want to be arriving before 2.

True, although only going as far as Ashurst would mean missing most of the traffic once you get past the M3.

3) We go west.
I like this idea too... until I follow it all the way through. My in-laws live near Bicester, and I know the journey there very well (M11/A428/A421/A4421). From there it's a skip to the A34, and we could in theory just follow that all the way south to the M3 and Southampton. However... I can't imagine it's going to be much fun around the M3/M27 junctions on Friday, either. And indeed the A34 terminal roundabout at Winchester, whatever it's called again (Winnell?), is probably going to be fairly fruity then too. The worst thing would be to go miles out of our way by tacking across to Bicester, only to find that the A34 round Oxford and at Winchester, and the M3/M27 at Southampton, are as bad or worse than the M25 stuff we were trying to avoid by missing out London. Then we'll have gone further but for no demonstrable gain. Who can tell me what the A34 is likely to be like on Friday? I'm guessing the answer is probably... 'bad'.

The A34 will no doubt queue for a good couple of miles approaching Winnall, before you get the traffic on the M3. My advice here would be to keep an ear on radio traffic bulletins or for whoever is passenger to keep an eye on the traffic mode on Google Maps. If it is really bad, then perhaps go for........

....A34/Bullington Cross/A30/B3084/cut through to A27 via Kent's Oak/A27/Gardiner's Lane via Tatchbury Mount/A3090 (which is the old A31, right?)/A36 via Ower/A31 briefly/back lanes to Ashurst campsite.

That doesn't seem like a bad idea. From Ower, you should be able to go straight across the M27 at Junction 2 onto the A326, then the A35. The A35 only tends to queue further down at Lyndhurst then approaching Christchuch, plus you'll be on the main road right through Ashurst.

[WHBM]

I'm not risking the M25 on Friday!

Unfortunately I have a business meeting that day which requires using it ... and TfL have dug up the obvious alternative.

[RichardA35]

..At the time of writing, the current favoured approach is actually to do something completely different, namely: send my wife and son, who, remember, can travel any time on Friday, off to the New Forest at around 10am Friday, either via the M25 or via Bicester and the A34, in the interests of minimising the traffic they might encounter. Then I journey to meet them after 3pm by train, travelling through London. The campsite we're heading for is right next to a mainline train station with direct services to and from Waterloo, so it's not a bad plan. And the chances are they'll have a much better, and hopefully less interrupted journey to the New Forest than they would if they waited for me to finish work and we all leave together.

The question is then just: should they risk the M25 on Friday morning after rush hour from Cambridge, or STILL go west and via Bicester and the A34? And should I 'SABRE-ise' any aspects of that route for them to minimise the risk? They could even conceivably go over to my wife's parents near Bicester Thursday evening and set off fresh and early at 9-10am down the A34 on Friday. Perhaps then they could go straight there via Winchester and the M3/M27 without too much trouble. But if I heed the Sky news report — which basically suggests fire and brimstone on all the motorways of the UK from dawn to dusk Friday — it might be prudent to tweak some of that route. Below are my latest thoughts on that:

The Western route, SABRE-ised:
M11/Madingley/A428/via St Neots to miss out the awful A1 section and Black Cat/A421 to Milton Keynes/rat run through MK to avoid black spots like the A421 terminal roundabout at M1 junction 13/A421 to Finmere/A4421 to Bicester/*possible overnight stop Thursday*/A41/A34/Bullington Cross/A30/B3084/cut through to A27 via Kent's Oak/A27/Gardiner's Lane via Tatchbury Mount/A3090 (which is the old A31, right?)/A36 via Ower/A31 briefly/back lanes to Ashurst campsite.

Is that overkill? Should my wife and son just suck up the M25 or the A34/M3/M27 all the way...? And although I've edited out Winnell and Southampton by using the A30 and A3090/A31, will they just get unavoidably stuck on the northern A34 round Oxford, which I *haven't* found a sensible route around...? I would welcome the input of anyone with experience of these routes at busy times/bank holidays...!

The main feedback I have is that it is good to see some thinking applied to the problem rather than the apparently fixed ideas endemic among our apparently older correspondents of "I must drive" irrespective of the likely overall discomfort for the entire party.

I'm not risking the M25 on Friday!

Unfortunately I have a business meeting that day which requires using it ... and TfL have dug up the obvious alternative.

Have the railway alternatives been exhausted? Most major towns around the M25 can be reached via a radial rail route from London and a taxi or doesn't your business run to proper expenses?

[Andy J]

The main feedback I have is that it is good to see some thinking applied to the problem rather than the apparently fixed ideas endemic among our apparently older correspondents of "I must drive" irrespective of the likely overall discomfort for the entire party.

In my experience it is the more elderly who have the flexibility to avoid driving at peak times.

Oh, and don't necessarily expect travelling by train to be a bundle of fun even though there are no strikes planned for that weekend.