There was an article yesterday, I think on BBC News website, that a new airport will be needed in the south-east because of the predicted increase in the number of passengers.
However, for road transport "Predict and Provide" is ruled out!
Maybe politicians fly more than they drive.
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But they're predicting that we'll all drive down to London's four intercontinental airports.
Probably via the M25.
Which originated from a scheme to spare London from traffic congestion and pollution.
That was horse traffic congestion and pollution.
And there were to have been 5 (FIVE!) rings!
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Because of the amount of traffic on the M25 the Dartford Tunnel tolls are being retained and the ORBIT study will propose road-charging across much of southern Britain.
To relieve the M25 what is needed is an outer ring which has jucctions ONLY with the other motorways, thus keeping it free of local traffic and removing long distance traffic from the M25.
The alternative is to do a similar thing with the M25 and close almost half of the existing intersections, but this would require upgrading of the complimentary "A" roads, particularly the "South Circular" which is a national disgrace.
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Outer ring?
What is needed is a double decker M25 between M23 & M1 with, as you say, junctions only for motorways, Heathrow & the A3.
Job done.
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The M25 is actually a bodge up of rings 3 and 4 which is why it's an oval.
In addition to missing rings 1 and 2, and the rest of rings 3 and 4, there's a missing "outer" ring 5 !:-(
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What on earth are you on about with rings?
Do you mean lanes?
Kev (from Yorkshire, so not London knowledgable)
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Kev
Rings as in "Ring Road"
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Rings, as in roads, or even ring roads.
Five of them.
But traffic must have gone down since the days of the horse drawn cart for them to justify only building the north and south sections of ring three, cobbled onto the east and west sections of ring four.
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The M25 is not an oval, I quote from Good Omens by Terry Pratchett:
"Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be amoung the top contenders for Exhibit A.
Where they go wrong, of course, is assuming that the wrteched road is evil simply because of the incredible carnage and frustration it engenders every day. In fact, very few people on the face of the planet know that the very shape of the M25 forms the signal 'odegra' in the language of the Black Priesthood of Ancient Mu, and means "Hail the Great Beast, Devourer of Worlds". The thousands of motorists who daily fume their way around its serpentine lengths have the same effect as water on a prayer wheel, grinding out an endless fog of low-grade evel to pollute the metaphysical atmosphere for scores of miles around." It was one of Crowley's better achievements.
It had taken years to achieve, and had involved three computer hacks, two break-ins, one minor bribery and, on one wet night when all else had failed, two hours in a squelchy field shifting the marker pegs a few but occultly incredible significant metres. When Crowley had dwatched the first thirty-mile long tailback he's dexperienced the lovely warm feeling of a bad job well done."
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