M25 widening

[rov1100]

What year was the last time a motorist could travel the length of the M25 without being held up by adding an extra lane? Wouldn't it have been far cheaper to have built 6 lanes in both directions from the start? A lack of forward planning or being tight fisted?

[ChuckFickens]

http://en.wikipedia.o...y#Operational_history

[jno]

same thing, basically: you don't think you'll need extra lanes for quite a while so you don't spend money building them. The M25 is an excellent example of how new roads create more traffic to fill them.

[TWR]

After travelling on that Rd Rov, it was out dated the day it opened.

[factor-fiction]

I think that even with six lanes you'd find there would still be jams. Each time one car has to slow down slightly to accommodate another car changing lanes it can have a knock-on effect on hundreds of cars behind.

[rov1100]

Yes all true. Nearly every day a section of the M25 is closed so having more lanes don't help. Bit difficult now but maybe an outer orbital road should also have been built beyond the M25. Just by adding an extra lane costs more than the original cost of the whole motorway.


There should be a law like Parkinsons Law that fills up a motorway as soon as built as jno mentions.

[Hopkirk]

The bit by Heathrow has been widened, but it still seizes up at peak times.

[rojash]

"Bit difficult now but maybe an outer orbital road should also have been built beyond the M25."
Yeah but in a couple of years you'd be saying they should have built an outer-outer orbital road, and few years on you'd be saying they should have just tarmacked the whole country

[tamborine]

Oi rov1100, lots of us dont want motorways encroaching our property. The bigger the motorway the more cars - it never ends down here.