Talk:M25 motorway/Archive 1

Fence
Is it a pollution control fence between J11 and J10? HOw does it work? Rich Farmbrough 09:35, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Junction Guide or map
Both of theses wuld be useful if created, not really sure where to start from. Might make a Junctin guide with the roard that comes off possibly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashl (talk • contribs) 21:34, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Nickname
Should this article mention the various nicknames given to this piece of tarmac hell? It is frequently referred to as 'the road to hell' (as hinted at in the article when mentioning the song of the same name) and the 'magic roundabout'. Also, the lane info seems very much out of date. It is 4 lanes each way virtually all way round now with only a fraction at 3 lanes each way. The new parts near Staines and Heathrow are 5 or 6 lanes each way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robruss24 (talk • contribs) 11:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Busiest motorway of Europe
As for ring road length above, this statement is also untrue. The Périphérique of Paris had between 1.1 and 1.2 million cars per day in 2002, which is almost 6 times more than the M25. So I corrected the statement in the article. Hardouin 15:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hold on a minute. 1.2 million cars per day is an awful lot. That would be nearly 14 cars per second - i.e. not far short of 2 cars per second per lane, probably much closer separation at peak times! Do Parisiens really drive like that, or perhaps are the statistics used for the Périph different from that of the M25?
 * The M25's usage statistics that are usually quoted are the average number of vehicles passing a particular point per day (referred to as AADT in official statistics), at the point where it's being measured. The total number of vehicles using the M25 as part of the journey will be much higher, as most people will be only using a part of the M25
 * The high figure for the number of cars sharing the same lane per second if the 1.2 million figure quoted above for the Périphérique is generated like that of the M25 suggests to me that the figure is actually likely to be the total number of vehicles using a part of the Periph per day.
 * This site suggests an AADT of only 120,000 vehicles per day, much less than that of the M25's western section.
 * I think more investigation is necessary into what the figures are, and what exactly they describe. Richard B 01:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, there are also other concurrents. The BAB100 in Berlin (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesautobahn_100) counts up to 216.000 vehicles passing a particular point per day (e.g. Dreieck Funkturm). In the German wikipedia it was called up to today "Europe's busiest motorway". I just changed it to be "one of Europe's busiest motorways", as to me it seems to be quite comparable to the M25. In regard to the Périphérique I can definately say that it has sometimes 2, sometimes 3 lanes per direction, and that it is half of the day completely congested. A reasonable estimation to me would be a maximum of 150.000 vehicles using a part of the Periph per day. --NYR

Nope 1.2 million car per days for 32 km the average distance traversed by a driver is 7km Make the calculus 1,200,000/32*7= 262,200 and you can see the average traffic of Paris peripherique is 262,200 cars per day The busiest part can easy has 300,000 cars per day. Minato ku 23:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Minato Ku


 * You can always twist statistics to have them say whatever you need to prove your point. What I find particularly annoying is the overall nationalist tone of this article ("the M25 is the longest orbital motorway in the world", "the M25 is the busiest motorway in Europe"). Now you say that we should count vehicules passing at a particular point per day, not vehicules for the overall motorway. Ok. According to this webpage from the French Senate, in 2002 traffic on the A4 motorway near Saint-Maurice, in the suburbs of Paris, was 275,000 vehicules per day. So that's much higher than either Dreieck Funkturm in Berlin, or M25 near Heathrow Airport. And that was 4 years ago. As everybody who have been to Paris recently would know, traffic in the Paris metropolitan area has increased a lot in the recent years, so the figure for A4 near Saint-Maurice is probably higher now than in 2002. Hardouin 03:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Of cause, thats true. It is probably just that one has to find something special to justify an entry in wikipedia. In general, an entry for a motorway is quite boring and without much really helpful information. Might it be a better solution to just delete all these more or less speculative and rather hard to prove statements? If not, denoting at least which criterium was used to justify the statement, e.g. "vehicules passing at a particular point per day" like you did is a good start. :) NYR 10:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Wait wait wait, you're saying that having a big, busy motorway round your capital should be a source of nationalist pride? You twisted continentals... :P --zippedmartin 13:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Traffic Wave Congestion
This would be a good article to reference the phenomenon of the progressive speed modulation of heavy traffic which often occurs on the M25. Perhaps somebody who knows more than me about queuing theory could add somethingChrisAngove 16:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

References in Common Culture
In attempting to wikify the Andy Hamilton link to show the Divine Comedy reference (as a reader might not know the Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate reference), it simply broke again. And again. And again. Can someone who is more gifted in Wikipedia-fu than I do it? Jessica Schmidt (talk) 21:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Presumably they have changed the heading ? The future proofed way of doing it would be to anchor the heading and placing a comment that it's linked to here, but I can't remember how to do it  ! Perhaps WikiQuote is more appropriate in any case, and the same applies there, no doubt - Inferno -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 23:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this what you're after ? -
 * M25, "abandon hope all ye who enter here; no services until Junction 12".
 * -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 23:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Racing
I've added a section about the races/time trials that occurred in the late 80's based on the BBC Radio 4 programme. It would be interesting to find out more information about this, particularly as the emergency services made their predictable play of how very naughty it was without any evidence of accidents, deaths or injuries.

Since more general, unreferenced, ancidotes can't be placed on the main page I've created this talk page thread as a collection point.

TVR SEAC Tony Dron & Chris Schirle – Pulled by police and failed to complete. 

I recall there were some cars with a small discrete sticker on the rear window that had a M25 map (a la ring map) with sub60 or <60 in the middle. You had to a lap in under 60 mins to earn the sticker. I think it meant an average of 117 MPH. Back in 2002 (funnily enough, in the GT2!!) i did a lap in 45 mins and something seconds. No video evidence though. (146ish average).

Another PistonHeads thread from 2002

-- John 13:43, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The article mentions finacial workers in Docklands and talks of the 80's most of the financial buildings in the docklands (canary wharf) were not finished til the early nineties were they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.22.97.146 (talk) 20:20, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I was repeating what the radio prog. said - if you've got better info. and references then feel free to modify it. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk ·  Contribs) 08:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Six lanes each way in at least one place
Around the Heathrow T4&T5/Staines area the M25 is 6 lanes in each direction (plus hard shoulders) and has been for a few years now. Surely that warrants a mention? Anyone know if that is an EU record? This is uninterrupted carriageway, it's not a series of separated carriageways that just happen to be next to each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.182.109 (talk) 23:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

According to CBRD the M61 at Linnyshaw Moss, Greater Manchester (close to the M60 interchange), which has 17 separate traffic lanes side by side, spread across several parallel carriageways. However, a look on the ground makes it clear that there are 18 lanes parallel for a very short while (aerial photographs confirm this).Kentm (talk) 11:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That is just seperate carriageways though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.145.224 (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ring Road
Just for the files: the A10 round German capital of Berlin is a 196km long ring road, so the M25 is surely not worlds biggest ring road. See http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesautobahn_10 for reference.
 * Ok, I am correcting this in the article then. Hardouin 15:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * As Hardouin does not seem to have corrected it, I did it now. In a gracious manner, however. It now reads "to be one of the longest city bypasses" instead of "to be the longest city bypass".
 * No no, I had corrected it, but someone removed my correction in the meantime. Nationalism is running high on Wikipedia unfortunately... Hardouin 02:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Link - My-M25.co.uk Forum Forum for the many millions of M25 users to share information ; I suggest removing this, as nothing has been added since March '08, and the only correspondent (1) seems not to be based in the UK. Railtracksurvivor Oct 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.73.148.164 (talk) 11:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Advertising?
Advertising? Wiki terrorism? Oh yeah? This bit ought to go.82.15.46.131 22:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I've removed this section now as it looked like blatant advertising/spam to me. Apart from anything else it referred to an event which 'happened' in November 2007 which obviously can't be fact. I'm sure if people disagree then my edits will be reverted anyway! TrevelyanD 21:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

M25.mobi - I've added a site to the External Links section that provides M25 travel information while on the move. The site is free to all that use it and is a relevant reference for those people that are increasingly using the internet via their phones. In comparison to the M25 forum link that is shown above it, it has significantly more value... Solutioneering (talk) 07:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Tunnel between J25 & J26
Please can someone add details of the tunnel between J25 & J26 (at 51.68272°N, -0.03982°W): What's it called? Why is it there? Thank you. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:46, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * 25 to 26 is the Holmesdale tunnel. Originally constructed as dual three lane carriageways with hard shoulders, this year widening was completed to add a fourth lane while maintaining continuous hard shoulder.  The purpose of the tunnel was, I believe to keep some 'green space' between London and Hertfordshire (though of course the new Carillion buildings probably put paid to this now.


 * 26 to 27 is the Bell Common tunnel. Same construction as above and currently undergoing similar widening work.  The purpose of this is to prevent Epping Forest becoming broken up and to allow wildlife such as deer easy crossing.


 * I would have put this in the main article, but I can't reference any of it. C2r (talk) 21:31, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Orbital
"One act, Orbital, even took its name from the motorway." Are they really at all significant or relevant to the M25's history? This looks like pure self-promotion to me, the group having recently reformed. 92.17.37.70 (talk) 14:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Distance around the M25
How much difference is there in distance travelled between the innermost and outermost lanes of the M25 if you were to drive all the way round? (My husband thinks about 160m... anyone know better?)


 * The calculation would depend on the various lane-drops and gains that exist on the M25 - some bits have 2 lanes, some 3, some 4 and I think a small section even has 6.
 * For the sake of doing a rough calculation - let's assume that our hypothetical M25 follows the same route as the real one - but has exactly 3 lanes in each direction - and also that the M25 is continuous (i.e. that the A282 is actually the M25)
 * The difference in distance between the line that forms the hard-shoulder, and the line between the lanes and the central reservation - with the above assumptions - would be approximately 70 metres (= 2 x pi x 11m - 11m being the width between hard shoulder and central reservation line on a 3-lane motorway)
 * The fact that the M25 has sections with different number of lanes would alter this slightly - as would the fact that the Dartford crossing is in fact the A282. Richard B 18:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Double that to include all six lanes (both directions) and the central reservation equals 140m. Sp3ktor 14:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The only complication you're adding by including both directions (i.e. asking the question how much further is it if you travel round clockwise than anticlockwise) - is that the M25's carriageways do not have a fixed distance between them at all points. The carriageways split apart near to Junction 23, and at J5. The Dartford crossing (of the A282 - but included in my calculation above) has one carriageway over the bridge - whilst the other is in the tunnel - so a fair separation in both distance and height) Richard B 20:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I recently came across a Highway Agency web page that showed the cumulative distances of each junction that referenced driver locations signs. Rather than enter into a long discussion, I decided to include this information and see what happened. I am cross-referencing this to the general page on motorways. User:martinvl 19:55 2009-06-09 —Preceding undated comment added 19:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC).

Traffic stats
The Dept for Transport website shows three AADF figures for the M25 in excess of 200,000: Go to http://www.dft.gov.uk/matrix/forms/search.aspx, search for M25 in the tables and go to the second page. The relevant figures are for count points are 47876, 27923 and 73638. I can't locate these count points on the maps. Anyone? Pterre (talk) 18:34, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Lede (lead)
I think the lede (lead) needs attention:
 * The M25 motorway, also known as the M25 corridor...
 * Surely the M25 is the M25 and the corridor is the corridor (ie the surrounding strip of towns and green-belt)?


 * it is said to be one of the longest city bypasses in the world.. Surely it is one of the longest.
 * In Europe, the M25 is the second-longest ring road after the Berlin Ring (A 10) which is longer by 5 miles (8 km). The M60 motorway in Manchester makes it the only other city in the United Kingdom to benefit from an orbital motorway. A motorway box encircles Birmingham but it uses parts of the M5, M6 and M42. Upon completion of the M74 motorway in 2011 to the Kingston Bridge, Glasgow will have a similar arrangement to Birmingham, though a route passing through the city centre, using the M8, M73 and M74.
 * Is all this guff really needed in the lede? It should surely go under a sub-heading. Pterre (talk) 11:31, 11 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Is that better? I have been through it, adding some details about when it opened and how busy it is and removed a load of 'guff' and also a really weird reference to a book about children's stories which didn't seem to be at all relevant. I think the rest of the article could do with some work and possibly a 'statistics' section is needed that can hold all the comparison information that has been loaded into the description. PeterEastern (talk) 15:38, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes that looks a lot better, thanks! Pterre (talk)


 * As noted above it seems to have peak usage of above 200,000 but I can't pin down a source. The 196,000 figure is apparently from 2003. The Highways Agency quotes 200,000 and there are some figures on the Dept for Transport website, but I've not been able to pin these to a location. Pterre (talk) 09:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The HA mentions 200,000 frequently and I suggest we should use that instead, although the 2003 figure is good for the history section. I suggest that the figure has now peaked because the road is saturated mot of the time and the volume will only increase when it is widened. Seriously though, I don't believe the road and the feeders can take any more hence the reason the figure hasn't changed in 5 years. PeterEastern (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding the traffic volume, this page on the HA website says "The western section of the M25 is one of the busiest sections of motorway in Europe carrying in excess of 200,000 vehicles per day. [...] It was designed in the mid 1990's to carry 100,000 vehicles a day. However, the busiest section between Junctions 13 and 14 already carries 200,000 vehicles a day.". Interestingly, this Guardian article from 1993, also gives the 200,000 figure - "[The proposed link roads] are intended to remove traffic travelling between the M3 (Junction 12) and the M4 (Junction 15) from the M25, which carries up to 200,000 vehicles a day on that stretch." Thryduulf (talk) 14:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Junction table
I'm from Sweden, but have driven from Ramsgate to Weymouth several times in the mid 1990's. I remember first driving a short bit om the M2, then changed to an A-road over the hills that I think is called "North Downs" and close to Maidstone there were Motorway again, which ended at the M25 London Orbital wich I followed to the junction to M3 towards Southampton (and later M27 and smaller roads down to the coast) But I can't find the number of the M3-junction in the table. I do not remember the number of the junction though. (By the way I got a flat tire at an maintenence part, with free recovery. I think the UK is a very pleasent contry both to drive in, and to visit) 83.249.33.119 (talk) 03:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It would have been Junction 12 (which is in the table). Martinvl (talk) 08:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

How long is the M25?
Using Google Earth and the HA-supplied M25 diagram of Driver Location Signs, I back-measured the start of the M25. It turned out to be the middle of Junction 31 (which has a driver location sign of 186.6 km. This converts to 115.97 miles (or 116.0 if rounded to one significant figure).  This poses the question "Where does the figure of 117 miles in the article's introduction come from?". Martinvl (talk) 08:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Martinvi, the pdf referrd to above simply says "The numbers refer to the kilometres from a point near Junction 31 on the M25." It is curious that the motorway authority is not more specific than that. Perhaps this explains the apparent discrepancy in the length of the motorway. Michael Glass (talk) 10:53, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The HA's main information page about the M25 http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/18111.aspx starts off with "At 117 miles, the M25 or London Orbital Motorway is the longest city bypass in the world.", so that is probably the source for the intro to this article. As for the ~1 mile discrepancy, could this be due to rounding errors and/or the length being different via the QE2 bridge and the tunnels? The inner (anti-clockwise) carriageway will be slightly shorter than the outer (clockwise) one, but I've no idea how significant that will be. Thryduulf (talk) 11:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The distance clockwise will not be much longer than the distance anticlockwise. If the two carriageways are of constant width, and at a constant separation, the maximum difference in distance will simply be (2πw) metres, where
 * π is the constant 3.14159...
 * w is the motorway width in metres, which we may take as the separation between the two white lines delimiting the two carriageways from their nearside hard shoulders
 * If we assume that the lanes are 4m wide, and that there are four of them, and also that the central reservation is also a constant 4m wide, this makes motorway width (4 * 9) = 36 metres, so the calculation is (2 * π * 36) = 226.1947... metres, 247.3695... yards, or 0.1405... miles. Somewhat less than 0.53 miles anyway, which is what we need to add to 115.97 to get up to 116.5 and so round to 117.
 * Of course, if the two carriageways deviate significantly in places, with the clockwise taking a longer course than the anticlock, this will add some more on. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The carriageways do take significantly different routes across the river at Dartford, and through Junction 5 . Google maps directions say that a clockwise journey from J4 to J6 is 14 miles, whereas the reverse journey is 13.7 miles, and that the QE2 bridge is 0.1 miles longer than the tunnels, so that will account for ~0.4 miles, which with the 0.14 miles you calculated give 0.54 miles difference, which seems to fit very nicely - especially as the anticlockwise carriageway looks to take a very slightly longer route just east of Junction 23. Thryduulf (talk) 18:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)