The first-ever planned full-land closure of a stretch of the M25, Britain’s busiest motorway, this weekend had sparked warnings of traffic chaos. Intrigued to how south west London’s infrastructure would cope with the potential chaos, we decided to pay a visit.
Concorde, the Intercity 125 and the M25 motorway. Three icons of British transportation, but only the latter remains in heavy public use. The plane didn’t last too long beyond the turn of the century, and the train has been relegated to regional use rather than the cross-country routes it was designed to serve, but the motorway hasn’t seen a change of use, though – unlike the others, it simply can’t afford to.
Whether you’re heading into the city itself or trying desperately to avoid it, there’s no escaping the M25. London and its surrounding areas have only become more populous since the motorway was completed in 1986, and traffic numbers have only grown with it – originally designed to carry 88,000 vehicles every day, the Department for Transport’s latest statistics show that it carried a whopping 204,000 vehicles every 24-hour cycle in 2022.
As poorly-paved, over-populated and generally soul-crushing as the M25 is, the only thing more nightmarish for drivers than the M25 is a world where it doesn’t exist. Everyone is thinking the same thing the day before first ever full weekend closure of the M25 – between Wisley and Chertsey in Surrey, to allow an old bridge to be demolished and a new gantry to be installed – this is going to be a glimpse into pure, unadulterated motoring hell.
There are no peak traffic times on this section of the M25, known as the South West Quarter – it simply starts at 6am and doesn’t ease up for the next 12 hours. Equally usually for a motorway, 78% of motorists on the SWQ are coming from or travelling to somewhere relatively nearby. Public transport on the routes that these journeys would normally take is borderline non-existent, and there are simply no other major roads to take the pressure off of the motorway.
It’s not like you can just build another main road, either; virtually every piece of undeveloped land in the area is protected by law, underground tunnels would be prohibitively expensive and no-one wants their house to be flattened for a motorway.