A typical Friday on the Dartford Crossing
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- Опубліковано 9 сер 2022
- A new animation released by National Highways shows the unprecedented levels of traffic that use the Dartford Crossing every Friday, which causes congestion and frustration for tens of thousands of motorists and local communities.
One of the UK’s most vital transport links, the Dartford Crossing is the only road crossing of the River Thames east of London. It connects key ports, distribution hubs and manufacturing centres, with almost 40% of vehicles using it carrying goods, far higher than anywhere else on the Strategic Road Network (SRN). It plays a key part in daily life, keeping supermarket shelves stocked and supply chains moving, as it transports 70% of all goods arriving at the Port of Dover. However, it is also one of the UK’s most congested and therefore unreliable roads, causing misery for motorists and acts as a handbrake on the national economy.
Read more here: nationalhighways.co.uk/our-ro...
This should be a proper (M) road
They can't as its the only way non motorway vehicles can cross.😊
Has one shovel load of dirt been moved yet after years of planning. Nope.
It will never be built because our highways agency is not up to the job.
I suffered for 23 years from tunnel congestion and all we get is talk - yet more talk - promises and crudely produced videos.
Sack the lot of them
It's about time this was done, in fact it should have been done earlier. Please no more wasting time just get it done. All those who object to improving major infrastructure should be forced to use, what they object to, everyday. That way when they see their time and life wasted because of people like them objecting to all the time. They'll even beg for bigger solutions.
My local resident's account was renewed TWICE and they happily took the money TWICE and I had another £10 in my account which I put in there because i tried to re validate my card. They took another £4 out of my account, claiming that my account was not approved. 127 people ahead of me in the queue on the phone. The woman who tried to sort it out last time on the phone was from Leeds. So local people get highway robbed by people whp do not live locally. This is more than scandalous!!! I want my money back!
This video might be very confusing for people not familiar with the area and route. Nowhere does it mention what the existing and proposed crossings actually are. Are they bridges or tunnels? This gives the unfortunate impression that National Highways may not be too sure themselves.
As the video states the Dartford Crossing has a design capacity of 135,000 vehicles per day, but regularly sees 180,000 per day.
That means we'd need to see a reduction of more than 25% to bring the current crossing back below capacity. Yet the proposed Lower Thames Crossing would take as little as 4% away. It is also estimated that cross river traffic would increase by 50% if the proposed LTC goes ahead. This means the Dartford Crossing would still be suffering with congestion, pollution, and incidents.
National Highways are also not considering or planning how traffic would migrate between the two crossings when there are incidents, if the LTC goes ahead, and there would not be adequate connections.
When there's an incident at the Dartford Tunnels and traffic comes off the M25 onto the A2 coastbound to try and get to the LTC, there would be just one single lane from the A2 onto the LTC.
When there's an incident at the QE2 bridge and traffic comes off the M25 onto the A13 eastbound to try and get to the LTC, it would have to travel all the way down to the Stanford A1014 junction (as there would be no access to the LTC from the A13 eastbound), up around the traffic lighted roundabout (alongside DP World, London Gateway, Thames Enterprise Park etc traffic) back westbound on the A13 to the LTC slip road just past (but not accessible from) the Orsett A128 junction.
If traffic instead came off the M25 directly onto the LTC, the M25 would be 5 lanes at that point, going onto 2 lanes southbound LTC until past the A13. Traffic on the M25 would soon back up to the A127, and start to try and cut through to the A128 thinking it can reach the LTC at Orsett, only to have to take the Stanford detour. With traffic building up more M25 traffic would likely also try to start cutting off from the M25 onto the A12 and cut through any route it can to try and get to the LTC.
It would be more chaos, congestion and pollution through out the region.
The proposed LTC would be hugely destructive and harmful, is not fit for purpose, wouldn't solve the problems at the Dartford Crossing, and would be a waste of £8.2bn+ of taxpayers' money. We need and deserve better. #NoLTC
Not to even mention induced demand. Eventually, as people realise the LTC's potential, it will become as clogged up as the Dartford Crossing. This is why there are tolls on the Dartford Crossing. If there were no tolls, traffic would be even worse.
What we need now, more than ever, are good-quality, public transport options, not more options for cars. I think the QEII bridge should be closed to motor vehicles and used exclusively as a two-way train bridge.
What an uninformative video that is! Spent 90% of it showing us the 'old road'. We know about the old road. Tell us about the new one!!