On 15 Feb, 19:36, Helen Edith Stephenson
wrote:
In article , Richard J.
writes

(snip)

The Highways Agency site says "In high wind situations the system allows
a progressive series of measures to be applied to restrict the speed and
position of vehicles on the bridge, and at very high wind speeds to
close the bridge and send all the traffic through the tunnels."

To me, this means that the east tunnel is probably closed to northbound
traffic as soon as they start sending high-sided vehicles through a
tunnel rather than over the bridge, so north-bound congestion could
build up well before the bridge is totally shut. I think the east tunnel
is wide enough for 2-way traffic, but don't know whether they would
implement that. They do in the Blackwall Tunnel. If they run 2-way
traffic through the east tunnel, that would only reduce northbound by
one lane, which wouldn't be as bad as halving it.

One of my colleagues who lives in Essex says that they divert high sided
vehicles to Tilbury and park them, so maybe they don't always filter
them straight off into a tunnel.

I've got a lot to learn about commuting via this crossing!

Helen


I'm sure that utl would be interested to hear of the dark secrets of
the Dartford Crossing once you've found them out.

By the by though I can't find any online reference to it I'm
nonetheless sure I've recently read or heard something about proposals
for the toll to go up, possibly £1.50 for cars IIRC, with bigger
increases for HGVs. The crossing would also become free to use
overnight for both cars and HGVs, though it's most likely won't be of
much consolation to you!

I'm sure you're aware of this Helen but just for anyone who isn't and
might be interested the Dartford Crossing's pre-pay tag system is
called DART-Tag and offers a 7.5% discount (which obviously is well
worth doing if you're a regular river-crosser but doesn't quite
compare to the half-price expectation I now have of smartcards
courtesy of Oyster!).
More info:
https://www.dartfordrivercrossing.co...-tag/index.asp