On Jun 10, 10:41*pm, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
19:18:39 on Wed, 10 Jun 2009, neverwas remarked:

Starting from there, the M11 and Dartford crossing seem somewhat
bizarre.

I suggested it on the principle that the sooner he's on a major dual
carriageway headed out of London the better.

That's a logical enough rationale - however as soon as one is south of
the Blackwall Tunnel one is on a dual carriageway headed out of
London, whether that be the A2 or A20 - and these roads are a world
away from the A24 that trudges due south through south London!

And going south through the Dartford tunnel is arguably heading out of
London - though then again, so is going north! However I wouldn't say
either direction was heading into London - though of course that's
just what some traffic will be doing.

The Blackwall Tunnel is where I'd imagine the greatest potential for
getting held up is - but the predominant flow in the morning is south
to north. Also, ever since the tidal flow system was stopped in 2007
as a result of safety concerns the southbound carriageway has regained
its lost lane - the tidal flow worked by making the southbound
(eastern) bore two way, so northbound traffic got three lanes and
southbound traffic only got one. There was no equivalent system in the
evening peak. This obviously means less capacity for northbound
traffic compared to before, but it eased things for southbound
traffic.

Incidentally Boris made an election pledge to reverse this decision
and re-instate the tidal flow, but not much has been heard about it in
more recent times, I think essentially because the Met Police aren't
having it. The real world is of course a little more complicated than
the world according to Boris's blusterings. Anyway Tom Barry
summarised the situation a year ago like this:
http://www.boriswatch.co.uk/2008/06/...olitan-police/

It's interesting to note that 'motorists friend' Boris cancelled the
Thames Gateway bridge (or at least shelved it - such plans are never
cancelled forever!), whilst car hater Ken was a big proponent of it -
said bridge would have provided an element of relief for the Blackwall
Tunnel. To be fair, the Thames Gateway bridge story is rather more
complicated than that and so can't really be summarised nice and
neatly in a sentence or two - in fact it's on my list of utl threads
to initiate when I get a mo!