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New Thames crossing 'will help' Dartford Crossing 
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The government has reiterated its belief that queues at the Dartford Crossing are so bad there will have to be a new, extra Thames crossing.

Roads minister Mike Penning said it would alleviate congestion at the tolls caused by "the success" of the M25.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15683561

Hmm - I would have thought elevating the toll would help keep traffic moving. The tolls were supposed to be scrapped once the bridge had been paid for, which it was a few years back. Instead the tolls have gone up.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:04 am
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Uh-oh.

I can see where this is going. Boris's Folly will be concatenated with a new Thames crossing. :o

North Kent has truly become the patio of the Garden of England. :?

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:11 am
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Considering the whole Dartford crossing is M25 biased, a new crossing to Boris Island would need to connect to the motorway pretty efficiently, or people will continue to use the existing crossing.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:14 am
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So which would you prefer ?

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In January 2009 the Department for Transport proposed three major options to increase capacity east of London over the Thames, to be built downstream of the existing Dartford Crossing and an additional proposal to increase capacity at the Dartford Crossing.[1]

Option A: Building an additional road crossing at the current Dartford Crossing and removing the old Dartford crossing tunnels from the strategic road network.
Option B: A new road crossing in the Swanscombe Peninsula area, connecting the A2 near Dartford (south) to the A1089 road, north of Tilbury Docks.
Option C: A new road crossing connecting the M2 motorway and M20 motorways in the south with the M25. This might be linked via a proposed new Thames flood barrier. The route from the north would pass close to South Ockendon, Orsett, Chadwell St Mary, West Tilbury, East Tilbury, across West Tilbury Marshes before crossing the Thames just to the east of Gravesend and Thurrock. It would join the M2 in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the Special Landscape Area. This proposed link is also within the Kent Downs AONB and special landscape area. According to the DfT this long route would have "considerable environmental impacts".
Also: Increased capacity on the current Dartford Crossing at a lower cost, however this option did not accommodate the predicted traffic growth in the longer term.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:32 am
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Oh, Option C most definitely. Anything that let's me drive from my doorstep, avoiding Dartford and South Ockenden in one fell swoop.

:evil:

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:36 am
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Option B seems pretty stupid to me.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 10:56 am
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HeatherKay wrote:
Oh, Option C most definitely. Anything that let's me drive from my doorstep, avoiding Dartford and South Ockenden in one fell swoop.

:evil:


Tsk. :o :shock: :evil: :twisted:


Actually, C looks the most sensible. It would take the traffic headed to The Tunnel off the QEII bridge and reduce the load there.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 11:46 am
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Option C: A new road crossing connecting the M2 motorway and M20 motorways in the south with the M25. This might be linked via a proposed new Thames flood barrier. The route from the north would pass close to South Ockendon, Orsett, Chadwell St Mary, West Tilbury, East Tilbury, across West Tilbury Marshes before crossing the Thames just to the east of Gravesend and Thurrock. It would join the M2 in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and in the Special Landscape Area. This proposed link is also within the Kent Downs AONB and special landscape area. According to the DfT this long route would have "considerable environmental impacts".

Also: Increased capacity on the current Dartford Crossing at a lower cost, however this option did not accommodate the predicted traffic growth in the longer term.

So...

  • Option A is a waste of time and money
  • Option C will be an environmental horror show and dump traffic at M2 J1 which will need a long, complex and expensive rebuild

I would choose Option B if it were extended to join Option C to the north of the A13.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 12:20 pm
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Option C but make it a looong tunnel

Yes 10x the cost but it would keep all the the tree huggers happy(ish)

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 2:08 pm
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hifidelity2 wrote:
Option C but make it a looong tunnel

Yes 10x the cost but it would keep all the the tree huggers happy(ish)

[LIFTED] 'em if they want to be happy let them put their hands in their pockets to pay the extra cost :twisted:

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:19 pm
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Options B & A are there to make option C (doubtless the preferred route) more palatable.

A - that’s just upgrading the current tunnel crossing. It won’t add anything more to that crossing, and the volume of traffic will just increase at the Dartford crossing, causing more congestion. The whole area is a network of tunnels and bridges anyway, so how they can fit another crossing in there is beyond me.

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QEII Bridge by hairydalek, on Flickr

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QE II Bridge and High Speed 1 by hairydalek, on Flickr

B - that’s an oddity. It may satisfy local traffic, but the majority of traffic is heading to/from Dover and the Tunnel.

C - this makes sense as it’s effectively filtering traffic coming from the North of the country heading towards Dover away from the bridge. Yes, people won’t like it, but I think it’s the one that will relieve the most congestion from Dartford.

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Fri Nov 11, 2011 4:58 pm
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rustybucket wrote:
So...

  • Option A is a waste of time and money
  • Option C will be an environmental horror show and dump traffic at M2 J1 which will need a long, complex and expensive rebuild

But hardly anyone using motorways would use option B. It wouldn't realistically relieve the conjestion at the Dartford crossing.

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Sat Nov 12, 2011 3:30 am
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