M25 motorway
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The M25 motorway is one of the UK's motorways. It is an orbital motorway that encircles London, and is approximately 117 miles (188 km) in circumference. It is the world's biggest ring road.
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Description
For most of its length the motorway has six lanes (three in each direction), although there are a few short stretches which are four-lane and perhaps one sixth is eight-lane, around the south-western corner. The motorway is currently being widened to ten lanes between junctions 12 and 14, and twelve lanes between junctions 14 and 15, which is due to be completed by the end of 2005. The Highways Agency has plans to widen almost all of the remaining stretches of the M25 to eight lanes.
It is thought to be Europe's busiest motorway: an estimated 200,000 vehicles a day make use of it, up from 100,000 a day in 1987.
The M25 is not a continuous loop. To the east of London, the toll crossing of the Thames between Thurrock and Dartford is the non-motorway A282. The Dartford Crossing, which consists of two tunnels and a bridge, is named Canterbury Way. Designating this stretch as a motorway would mean that traffic not permitted onto the motorway could not cross the Thames below Woolwich.
While this is more a structural than a logical issue, at junction 5 near Sevenoaks continuing around the M25 requires the driver to follow the slip roads, as the main routes continue as either the M26 to the east (on to the M20) or the A21 towards the south coast.
The road passes through multiple police force areas. Junctions 1-5 are in Kent, 6-14 in Surrey (passing at places through Greater London and Berkshire), 15-16 are in Buckinghamshire, 17-24 are in Hertfordshire, 25 in Greater London, 26-28 in Essex, 29 in Greater London and 30-31 in Essex.
History
The idea of an orbital road around London was first proposed early in the 20th century, through the Lutyens and Bressey plans of 1937 to the Abercrombie Plan of 1945 which proposed a series of five individual roads around the capital. Over time successive governments reduced this grandiose scheme to the Greater London Development Plan, a combination of two rings — the M25 and a smaller inner ring, initially hoped to become the M15, but currently still the A406 in the north, and the A205 in the south.
The orbital was constructed in stages from around 1975 until 1985. The sections were not constructed contiguously but in small sections, such as Dartford to Swanley (junction 1 to junction 3) and Potters Bar to Waltham Cross (J24 to J25), and later joined. Each section was presented to planning authorities in its own right and was individually justified; there were almost 40 public inquiries relating to sections of the route. Maps at this time depicting these short sections named the route as the M16 but this changed prior to completion.
The M25 was officially opened in October 1986 with a ceremony by Margaret Thatcher opening the section between J22 and J23 (London Colney and South Mimms).
The initial tenders for the construction of the M25 totalled £631.9 million. This did not include compulsory purchase of land and subsequent upgrades and repairs.
More recently, the perennially congested south-western stretch of the M25 (near Woking) has been fitted with an experimental automated traffic control system called MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling). This consists of a distributed network of traffic and weather sensors, speed cameras and variable speed signs that control traffic speeds with little human supervision. The system has reduced congestion and it is hoped that MIDAS will be fitted to the rest of the M25 in due course.
The M25 is known for its frequent jams. These have been the subject of so much comment from such an early stage that even at the official opening ceremony Margaret Thatcher complained about "those who carp and criticise". The jams have inspired jokes ("the world's biggest car park"), songs (Chris Rea's "The Road to Hell") and the following tongue-in-cheek theory:
- "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 among the top contenders for exhibit A." — from Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
The distance of the motorway from central London (taken as Charing Cross) varies from approximately 12 miles (19.3 km) near Potters Bar to 20 miles (32.1 km) near Byfleet. In some places the Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 while in others places, most notably around Watford, it is some miles distant. North Ockendon is the only settlement of Greater London to be outside the M25. A move has been mooted by London mayor Ken Livingstone to entirely align the boundary to the M25.
The M25's name inspired the name of the electronica duo, Orbital although a pre-cursor of the M25 was the North Orbital road.
References
- Iain Sinclair, London Orbital: A Walk Around the M25, 2002, Granta Books, ISBN 1862075476
See also
- Paris Périphérique
External links
| Image:UK motorway symbol.gif | Motorways of the United Kingdom | |
| Great Britain: M1 - M10 - M11 - M18 - M180 - M181 - M2 - M20 - M23 - M25 - M26 - M27 - M271 - M275 - M3 - M32 - M4 - M40 - M42 - M45 - M48 - M49 - M5 - M50 - M53 - M54 - M55 - M56 - M57 - M58 - M6 - M6 Toll - M60 - M61 - M62 - M65 - M66 - M67 - M69 - M602 - M606 - M621 - M73 - M74 - M77 - M8 - M80 - M876 - M898 - M9 - M90 | ||
| Northern Ireland: M1 - M2 - M3 - M5 - M12 - M22 | ||
| A-roads with motorway restrictions | ||
|---|---|---|
| A1(M) - A167(M) - A194(M) - A3(M) - A38(M) - A308(M) - A329(M) - A48(M) - A404(M) - A57(M) - A58(M) - A64(M) - A66(M) - A601(M) - A627(M) - A6144(M) - A74(M) - A8(M) - A823(M) | ||
| List of motorways in the United Kingdom | ||
Categories: Motorways in the United Kingdom | Orbital roads | Transport in Berkshire | Transport in Buckinghamshire | Transport in Essex | Transport in Hertfordshire | Transport in Kent | Transport in London | Transport in Surrey
