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What, into the cesspit of congestion that forms the western half?? Braving Jcts 10-13?? And the Heathrow section?? Not bloody likely...
And how many more miles would that add to my journey?? I'm hardly one of those desperate types who are so determined to avoid tolls, even if they lost more in petrol and miles than they possibly could in charges...
£70 worth of fines (how long before that becomes £100+) buys quite a lot of petrol. Go the other way or use blackwall if you are so far east that going round isn't an option.
Where are you coming from and to?
I'd normally be going to Gatwick Airoort/Brighton/South Coast.
No, Dartford seems to work fine for me.
Last edited by Berk on Mon Sep 28, 2015 11:22, edited 1 time in total.
I'm also near Peterborough and I've done A1 - M25 - Brighton a few times and it feels quicker going Dartford side (via A14 & M11), although the only time I did it and got delayed was in the queue for the crossing. Heathrow side felt a lot longer journey.
Berk wrote:Near Peterborough. So any route is likely to take me eastbound.
Blackwall might be worth a pop, even allowing for the queue there. The biggest problem is a lack of a good route from there to the M23, unless you fancy trying some kind of hardcore 'The Knowledge' type backstreet route, you are still going to be rejoining the M25 near Swanley.
My other thought is 'straight down the middle'. Crazy? Perhaps, but the last couple of times in the Smoke I've gone from the M1 to via Park Lane to the Oval I got a completely clear run. I've never driven south of the Oval though, so the A23 might be a complete nightmare for all I know.
I'm in Cambridgeshire too, and when I had to go to Gatwick one time, I decided, fed up with the awfulness of the Dartford and indeed the M25 generally, to go 'straight through the middle', too.
It was fine most of the way through 'the middle'. The unbelievably terrible bit, as you are afeared it might be, was the majority of the A23 out to the M23. I couldn't believe what a cruddy bit of road it was: not just narrow and utterly unsuited to the levels of traffic on it, but also twisty, festooned with irritating traffic lights, badly routed (WHAT is going on with that bloody horrible interchange near Purley station, which seems tailor-designed to foul up all of the flows that want to get through there...?) and through some of the least lovely parts of London to look at, to boot (or at least, the bits you can see from the utterly drab and depressing carriageways of the A23 seemed that way to me). It's not an experience I have ever repeated.
I do sometimes still go 'through the middle', but I have a Ninja route now that involves the A3, the A240, and 'secret sauce' roads through Banstead and Chipstead, reaching the A23 just before everything expands into glorious D3M and I can pretend to myself that I drove effortlessly out of town on the never-completed junctions 1 to 7 of the M23...
Calling at Wickham Bishops, Langford & Ulting, Maldon West, Barons Lane Halt, Cold Norton, Stow St Mary, and Woodham Ferrers...
Comstock wrote:My other thought is 'straight down the middle'. Crazy? Perhaps, but the last couple of times in the Smoke I've gone from the M1 to via Park Lane to the Oval I got a completely clear run. I've never driven south of the Oval though, so the A23 might be a complete nightmare for all I know.
M1 to the Oval might, conceivably, not be bad at all. South of the Oval expect the remainder of your day, if not your natural lifespan, to be spent on the A23. It is not a good road.
Comstock wrote:Blackwall might be worth a pop, even allowing for the queue there. The biggest problem is a lack of a good route from there to the M23, unless you fancy trying some kind of hardcore 'The Knowledge' type backstreet route.
A23 is indeed now useless.
Blackwall Tunnel
Rt onto A20 at Kidbrooke
Rt onto A205 South Circular
L after rly bridge into Verdant lane
Rt into Whitefoot Lane (obscure 1930s dual carriageway)
L then Rt into Beckenham Hill Road
Rt then L in Beckenham onto A222 Croydon Road
L onto A215 Shirley Road, Shirley Hills Rd, Gravel Hill
Rt onto A2022
Rt onto Westhall Rd, Succombs Hill
A22 at Rbt down to M25 J6.
WHBM wrote:Blackwall Tunnel
Rt onto A20 at Kidbrooke
Rt onto A205 South Circular
L after rly bridge into Verdant lane
Rt into Whitefoot Lane (obscure 1930s dual carriageway)
L then Rt into Beckenham Hill Road
Rt then L in Beckenham onto A222 Croydon Road
L onto A215 Shirley Road, Shirley Hills Rd, Gravel Hill
Rt onto A2022
Rt onto Westhall Rd, Succombs Hill
A22 at Rbt down to M25 J6.
You need a left from A2022 to B269 Limpsfield Road to make that route.
I know all these roads - they form various parts of some of my favourite rat runs - but it won't be fast at any time of day. I'd say you're looking at 40 minutes in light traffic, which would make the A2/M25/M23 route easily faster, and at any time during the day it would take much longer.
It's taken me an hour to get from Blackwall to Beckenham by that route before now, in the rush hour, so don't think that it's a nifty way past rush hour traffic on the M25!
The DfT have released this press release today saying the removal of the toll booths has saved peak time users 90 minutes a week with peak time savings of 14 minutes southbound and 7 minutes northbound with average savings of 7 1/2 minutes southbound and 3 1/2 minutes northbound. The release also states that in July the crossing was running at 20,000 vehicles over capacity.
I went across southbound on Saturday evening for the first time in several months. I must admit I almost forgot to pay after a very smooth run through now all of the toll booths and stuff have gone. Not much signage to remind you, as far as I can remember either, although I may have been paying insufficient attention.
Blackwall might be worth a pop, even allowing for the queue there. The biggest problem is a lack of a good route from there to the M23, unless you fancy trying some kind of hardcore 'The Knowledge' type backstreet route, you are still going to be rejoining the M25 near Swanley.
I have actually tried this - I was going from Telford to Worthing to pick up a vintage electronics item donated to me - and I actually managed it quite well thanks to the Highway's Agency's 1998 London Primary Route Re-signing Project, going via the M11, A406, A503 thro' Walthamstow - now non-primary, A10, London Ring Road A501, A3, A2, and A23 to the start of the M23 and out! (In a lightning-storm thro' Dalston to boot!)
Couldn't you have approached the crossing 2 mins earlier??
If I know Truvelo, he's not the sort of person to be dawdling along and looking at the scenery. If he could have been there two minutes earlier he would!
This just reminds me, I need to update my Dart Charge account to use my new Gmail address. When you think that you've updated them all, there's always someone else to tell.
Just checked it and I haven't been over the Dartford Crossing for 6 months! It was running very smoothly two weeks ago at lunchtime on a Sunday despite the hordes trying to get bargains at Lakeside over Black Friday.
Highways England have launched a summer campaign to inform people that there are no payment facilities at the Dartford Crossing and payment is done on line. However can you spot the deliberate mistake on the poster here
A303Chris wrote:Highways England have launched a summer campaign to inform people that there are no payment facilities at the Dartford Crossing and payment is done on line. However can you spot the deliberate mistake on the poster here
People may say its being pedantic but it is wrong
I'm thinking you are referring to "midnight the day after". It's ambiguous, arguably wrong, as midnight could be considered to be the dividing line between two days rather than belonging to a particular day. But in context it's obvious what it means.
A303Chris wrote:Highways England have launched a summer campaign to inform people that there are no payment facilities at the Dartford Crossing and payment is done on line. However can you spot the deliberate mistake on the poster here
People may say its being pedantic but it is wrong
I'm thinking you are referring to "midnight the day after". It's ambiguous, arguably wrong, as midnight could be considered to be the dividing line between two days rather than belonging to a particular day. But in context it's obvious what it means.
More likely it's the 'M25' bit that is setting the pedantic muscles twitching.
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