M25

 

On Thursday, I drove round the M25 to Reading. What a nightmare!

I actually was only on the road from the M1 to the M4. But it was in the rush hour. Things would have been fine, but for the fact that an accident at Potters Bar meant that all the would and his wife used the one alternative through St. Albans and also that someone decided to have a crash at Chorleywood. In one case I did six miles in an hour.

Methods of improving the M25 inevitably talk of more lanes. But this doesn't get over the problem, where if you have an accident instead of three lanes getting blocked, you get four five or even six!

Yesterday we drove to Bicester Shopping Village. As the A14 was possibly shut at one point, we decided to take the A428 from Cambridge to Bedford and then take the A421 through Milton Keynes towards Bicester. Surprising the time it took was the same.

Now this route which is a southern alternative to the A14 is being further improved and could become a solid route that takes traffic from Cambridge and East Anglia towards Oxford, Newbury and points west without using the M25. It just needs improvements to be made around the M1 and perhaps aroudn Buckingham.

Would it not be better to spend money on improving public transport, providing better parking at train stations and stategic dual carriageways, than billons on improving a road that will still remain choked?