Is the 9bn Lower Thames Road crossing approval bad news for rail?

[renegademaster]

(and the numbers are going up as a result of heavier vehicles

Probably not, the jump happened post covid and their wasnt some big jump in SUV sales in 2020

 

[Uncle Buck]

It's not overly clear what that is being compared for roads unlike the rail examples. and the author points out there are plenty of UK projects that are significantly more expensive e.g Newark Northern Bypass, LTC etc

This report suggests that the cost of road projets is closer to double the European average.


LTC clearly rivals the likes of HS2 and Crossrail for cost per km particularly when road schemes should be cheaper than highspeed and underground rail.


I'd be happy to support roads if there were plans to reduce road space elsewhere. For example i'd support bypass upgrades around York if it meant the city centre was made more bus and active travel friendly. There's not much joined up thinking though and it's not clear that building the LTC isn't just going to lead to other areas becoming even more congested and households buying more and more cars without space to store them.

There is also the argument that if a corridor is filled with traffic on an overloaded A-road, construction of a faster, safer motorway would not have serious environmental detriment.

 

[The Ham]

There is also the argument that if a corridor is filled with traffic on an overloaded A-road, construction of a faster, safer motorway would not have serious environmental detriment.

In the short term, until traffic volumes increase.

 

[Kingston Dan]

There is also the argument that if a corridor is filled with traffic on an overloaded A-road, construction of a faster, safer motorway would not have serious environmental detriment.

In what way? The embedded carbon and environmental damage to the locality would be a serious environmental detriment.

 

[renegademaster]

In the short term, until traffic volumes increase.

This never happened when the A21 was doubled

 

[The Ham]

This never happened when the A21 was doubled

It depends on if there's other limitations, for example the A303 hasn't seen significant growth west of Stonehenge, however if there were improvements at Stonehenge then it would almost certainly see significant growth.

Looking at the traffic surveys the A21 for Tonbridge to Pembury in 2013 the traffic on the A21 was 35,767 a "day" the dueling opened in 2017 by 2018 traffic had grown to 46,515 a "day" that's an increase of 30% (an increase of 10,000 ish vehicles) - so most definitely there's an increase in traffic.

Data (note I've used years which are actual surveys and not estimates) from here:

Count point 36259 - Road traffic statistics

roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk

You would have needed a lot of congestion to offset 10,000 vehicles per day.

 

[Nym]

It depends on if there's other limitations, for example the A303 hasn't seen significant growth west of Stonehenge, however if there were improvements at Stonehenge then it would almost certainly see significant growth.

Looking at the traffic surveys the A21 for Tonbridge to Pembury in 2013 the traffic on the A21 was 35,767 a "day" the dueling opened in 2017 by 2018 traffic had grown to 46,515 a "day" that's an increase of 30% (an increase of 10,000 ish vehicles) - so most definitely there's an increase in traffic.

Data (note I've used years which are actual surveys and not estimates) from here:

Count point 36259 - Road traffic statistics

roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk

You would have needed a lot of congestion to offset 10,000 vehicles per day.

But is that more journeys actually being made, or more traffic on that route that relieves other routes and the total journeys hasn't changed much?

 

[zwk500]

But is that more journeys actually being made, or more traffic on that route that relieves other routes and the total journeys hasn't changed much?

A bit of both, I'd expect. There'll be local rerouting as people from the A26 try and avoid the horrendous traffic Tunbridge Wells and Southborough was known for although the route from the A26 to Pembury is either back lanes or the town centre (this will settle back down a bit as the traffic distributes with dynamic routing on satnavs), there'll be strategic routing from the A22 (Uckfield/Eastbourne/Hailsham) as people are now able to avoid having to go up to the M25 and along if they're heading for Dartford/SE London/Kent. And there'll be a bit of local rerouting between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells as people can now avoid Southborough.

But also the reduction in congestion will have caused induced demand for journeys between Hastings/Bexhill and the surrounding towns to/From London, for which there is no reasonable road alternative and the rail options are busy, congested and expensive as well.

 

[stevieinselby]

Why would they want to want to use a Lower Thames Crossing for road transport when they can use the M25 on the West side of London?

Have you ever been on the M25 on the west side of London?!
Apart from the fact that the whole of the section from the M40 to the A3 is pretty notorious for congestion, it is both longer and normally slower than going via Dartford even from Birmingham, let alone from the East Midlands.

 

[weeklycommuter]

Have you ever been on the M25 on the west side of London?!
Apart from the fact that the whole of the section from the M40 to the A3 is pretty notorious for congestion, it is both longer and normally slower than going via Dartford even from Birmingham, let alone from the East Midlands.

Yes many times and it is congested but I got through eventually.

 

[The Ham]

But is that more journeys actually being made, or more traffic on that route that relieves other routes and the total journeys hasn't changed much?

I don't know for sure, however between 2018 and 2023 (again both counts and not estimates) there was an extra 3,000 vehicles using the route, so it's likely to be seeing some more traffic.

That would imply there's at least some increase in overall traffic.

There's other survey points nearby, so for example the A26 survey point immediately south of the A21 sees a fall off about 3,500 between 2012 and 2020 before increasing to being about 1,000 lower than the 2012 numbers in 2023.

This broadly correlates with the circa 4,500 drop on the A264 between 2015 and 2021.

That would imply that there was a drop of about 4,000 in through traffic before then other traffic started to return to the A26.

As such, whilst I can't be sure what's actually happened, I'm on fairly safe ground in saying traffic volumes have increased.

 

[SynthD]

Regarding congestion, yes it will fill up, but it will fill up with useful journeys someone thought it worth while to make which aren't currently being made. This is generally held to be a good thing

Is it, where have you read this? I understand the principle, but it’s so overwhelmed by an opposite, unnecessary use of cars for short journeys, that we hear so little about it.

 

[HSTEd]

Is it, where have you read this? I understand the principle, but it’s so overwhelmed by an opposite, unnecessary use of cars for short journeys, that we hear so little about it.

That gets into an argument about what constitutes an 'unnecessary' use of a car.

Personally, I feel the whole argument is tied up in fundamental discussions of the nature of society.

 

[mr_jrt]

Is this new link effectively serving as the unplanned middle section of what could have been the eastern quadrant of ringway 4? Ringways 3 & 4 merged on their eastern quadrants to create a bottleneck at the Dartford crossing, where planners apparently though merging two motorways into one would be handled by reducing the speed to increase capacity...and we all know how well that worked out.

I mainly ponder as the M26 is the short residual eastern stub of the original ringway 4 plans, and I wonder if, in time, linking it up to the new crossing would make sense to give a motorway route throughout.

 

[JamesT]

Is this new link effectively serving as the unplanned middle section of what could have been the eastern quadrant of ringway 4? Ringways 3 & 4 merged on their eastern quadrants to create a bottleneck at the Dartford crossing, where planners apparently though merging two motorways into one would be handled by reducing the speed to increase capacity...and we all know how well that worked out.

I mainly ponder as the M26 is the short residual eastern stub of the original ringway 4 plans, and I wonder if, in time, linking it up to the new crossing would make sense to give a motorway route throughout.

Isn’t the M25 in general a fudging together of the two ringways?

Does motorway status matter? There’s already the A228 and A229 which get you between the M20 and M2, which you could use if you wanted to avoid Dartford when the new crossing is built.

 

[The Ham]

Isn’t the M25 in general a fudging together of the two ringways?

Does motorway status matter? There’s already the A228 and A229 which get you between the M20 and M2, which you could use if you wanted to avoid Dartford when the new crossing is built.

In road design you can have "near motorway" designs, which provide nearly all the benefits of a motorway but you don't have the down sides of needing an alternative route for traffic which can't use motorways.

 

[stuu]

In road design you can have "near motorway" designs, which provide nearly all the benefits of a motorway but you don't have the down sides of needing an alternative route for traffic which can't use motorways.

You don't have to do that for new motorways either, only if you upgrade an existing road - the right of way has to be maintained

 

[yorksrob]

That gets into an argument about what constitutes an 'unnecessary' use of a car.

Personally, I feel the whole argument is tied up in fundamental discussions of the nature of society.

The anti rail people seem quite happy to point out "unnecessary" (read leisure) rail travel for a reason not to improve rail services.

 

[mr_jrt]

Isn’t the M25 in general a fudging together of the two ringways?

Yes, in the north, R4 was considered too far from London so wouldn't be justified, and in the south, R3 was too slow to be built, leading to the alignment being lost under the post-war urban sprawl. The M25 thus gained a short section linking R3 & R4 between Sevenoaks and Swanley, with the remaining eastern stub being dubbed the M26.

The new LTC appears to be rejoining the M25 in the north around Upminster. My concern is overloading that northeastern section of the M25 further. I haven't travelled it for several years, but it was always very busy when I did. It's an interesting curiosity to me that the spot where it rejoins the M25 is not too far from where R4 would have joined R3 near Brentwood.

As can be seen here.

Does motorway status matter? There’s already the A228 and A229 which get you between the M20 and M2, which you could use if you wanted to avoid Dartford when the new crossing is built.

I think it does if you're going to pump loads more traffic down it. In the south, yes, you can use the A228 and the M20 to get you between the M26 and the new link (or upgrade the A2 and really overload that added link section of the M25 south of Dartford), but I suspect in time the M26 could get extended to meet the M2/A2 junction by paralleling the M20 for a short distance then skirting the outskirts of the built up area along the A228. Depends how overloaded it all gets, I guess.

 

[Mikey C]

Yes, in the north, R4 was considered too far from London so wouldn't be justified, and in the south, R3 was too slow to be built, leading to the alignment being lost under the post-war urban sprawl. The M25 thus gained a short section linking R3 & R4 between Sevenoaks and Swanley, with the remaining eastern stub being dubbed the M26.

The new LTC appears to be rejoining the M25 in the north around Upminster. My concern is overloading that northeastern section of the M25 further. I haven't travelled it for several years, but it was always very busy when I did. It's an interesting curiosity to me that the spot where it rejoins the M25 is not too far from where R4 would have joined R3 near Brentwood.

As can be seen here.

The northeastern section of the M25 between the M11 and A13 always seem pretty resilient to me, it was comprehensively upgraded to D4M (with hard shoulders) and flows well. The issues tend to be with the terrible A12 interchange (now being upgraded) and of of course the Dartford crossing.

 

[Technologist]

Automotive emissions are hugely significant outside of the exhaust emissions. Particulate emissions are getting worse as a result of heavier and electric cars and road run off is something the UK doesn't even bother to monitor. Thousands of people per year are killed or seriously injured (and the numbers are going up as a result of heavier vehicles). That's why car traffic needs to be reduced. Hopefully to zero in urban areas where public and active transport is the most efficient solution and to mainly essential journeys in rural areas. More roads destroy human scale towns and cities and encourage urban sprawl. Electrification of road transport is the latest wheeze of the the motor industry not a sustainable way to plan transport.

https://www.ice.org.uk/news-views-insights/inside-infrastructure/focus-on-road-runoff-pollution-to-protect-rivers

Toxic run-off from roads not monitored, BBC finds

River flowing past the famous white 'Bake Off' tent is among those polluted by chemicals and tyre particles.

www.bbc.co.uk

So let's pick one of those:

A 75kg person is hit by a 1200kg car or a 2000kg car doing 10m/s we can approximate the resultant velocity of the combined car/vehicle mass as the amount of KE transferred to the pedestrian. In first collision the person is accelerated to 9.41m/s in the second they are accelerated to 9.6m/s.

Mass of the vehicle has zero effect on pedestrian impact as all cars are much heavier than a person. The profile of the nose and it's compliance is far more important. EVs on average are much better on both parameters as they don't need to locate an engine there and have normally been designed for aerodynamics resulting in a low nose.

The solution to road particulates are a combination of, fix the road surface, fix tyre design and stop worrying, the evidence of harm is inconclusive (and even if worse than the most pessimistic assumptions likely acceptable given the benefit side of the equation) and it's something of a "coincidence" that this has come to the forefront just as it has become obvious that cars are actually going to be way ahead of most of society/industry on climate change.

This reminds me of this:



The premise of this thread and those talking points are based around a position of not liking cars and wanting to get rid of them. Ultimately that position won't work and will be counter productive.

If you want to reduce harms around cars you need to accept that they are and likely will be for the foreseeable future the dominant form of transport and address the harms rather than try to get people to behave as we (you) might want them to and start changing their entire lives. People chose to buy cars because they like personal point to point transport, most people actually like driving. The anti car narrative of people being seduced by advertising or by lobby groups convincing politicians to build roads or create the crime of jay walking denies people agency, cars are popular, people buy them in all countries and political systems.

If we want to get people to live in walkable cities we need to give people choices and also accommodate people's desires not to live in one. There would not be half the conspiracy theory BS around LTNs if we were also building bypasses which local people tend to want (not all of them), rather than try to do passive aggressive nudges like remove parking on new build houses maybe try stuff like walkable streets and hidden car parks. The anti car people throw up loads of examples of Dutch urbanism/active transport without also mentioning that the Dutch have more trunk roads than the UK and drive further in addition to cycling further. Those walkable cities have massive underground car parks in them. More people, cycling, walking, driving and using the train is sort of abundance we should strive for.

 

[SynthD]

A 75kg person is hit by a 1200kg car or a 2000kg car doing 10m/s we can approximate the resultant velocity of the combined car/vehicle mass as the amount of KE transferred to the pedestrian. In first collision the person is accelerated to 9.41m/s in the second they are accelerated to 9.6m/s.

A vehicle-pedestrian contact at 22mph transfers the same energy regardless of vehicle mass? That surprises me. Or does the speed they are accelerated to not usefully measure the impact?

 

[The Ham]

The premise of this thread and those talking points are based around a position of not liking cars and wanting to get rid of them. Ultimately that position won't work and will be counter productive.

If you see what I've said elsewhere about traffic, a lot of what I talk about is reducing traffic by 10%, as that would mean that traffic volumes (and by extension journey times) would be like they are sitting the school holidays.

The issue with almost any new road is that it encourages more traffic.

Also, if you were to to date in parking standards the requirements have been relaxed a little for housing but kept strict for other uses. The reason being is that whist some people may have 3 or 4 cars per house often they will only be using one or two (especially if they have a works van and a personal car).

 

[Cambus731]

when I started this thread, I was under the impression that this crossing would be further to the East, maybe connecting with the A130. That is why I’d be so opposed to it as it would make it so much easier to drive between centres such as Southend, Basildon, Chelmsford, Colchester etc to places in Kent such as Medway, Maidstone, Thanet, Canterbury etc. Which would destroy rail’s ability to compete. Now I know it is much further to the west and is essentially intended to make local journeys easier, it does make sense as it could potentially take a lot of local cross Thames traffic off the existing Dartford Crossing freeing up capacity for traffic undertaking longer distance journeys.
Having said that, I probably would prefer it to be rail. Or joint road & rail. At the risk of being accused of descending into crayon related fantasy, it could make sense as some local light railway for the area.
Or as an addition to the national railway system, linking the LTS line with the lines in Kent, creating potential for services such as say, a Shoeburness to Ramsgate service via Southend, Pitsea and Medway. Or Southend to Tonbridge via Maidstone West. Or even Southend to Brighton via Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Hastings. As not everyone wishes to go to London. And direct trains between these places would create an attractive alternative to driving. I’ll go and put my crayons away now.

 

[quantinghome]

when I started this thread, I was under the impression that this crossing would be further to the East, maybe connecting with the A130. That is why I’d be so opposed to it as it would make it so much easier to drive between centres such as Southend, Basildon, Chelmsford, Colchester etc to places in Kent such as Medway, Maidstone, Thanet, Canterbury etc. Which would destroy rail’s ability to compete. Now I know it is much further to the west and is essentially intended to make local journeys easier, it does make sense as it could potentially take a lot of local cross Thames traffic off the existing Dartford Crossing freeing up capacity for traffic undertaking longer distance journeys.
Having said that, I probably would prefer it to be rail. Or joint road & rail. At the risk of being accused of descending into crayon related fantasy, it could make sense as some local light railway for the area.
Or as an addition to the national railway system, linking the LTS line with the lines in Kent, creating potential for services such as say, a Shoeburness to Ramsgate service via Southend, Pitsea and Medway. Or Southend to Tonbridge via Maidstone West. Or even Southend to Brighton via Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Hastings. As not everyone wishes to go to London. And direct trains between these places would create an attractive alternative to driving. I’ll go and put my crayons away now.

The problem is that there's no obvious route for a railway to go. The population is fairly diffused as shown below. What services would you run? I guess you'd connect up the lines north and south and extend the trains that currently terminate at Grays and Gravesend as shown below. But those would both be only half-hourly services unless you beef up capacity elsewhere. Hardly worth the investment to end up with 4 trains per hour through each tunnel bore.

More fundamentally, this would serve an entirely different purpose to the road crossing, which is to provide more capacity on the key pinchpoint between the Channel and pretty much the entire UK north of London. Rail is never going to compete with that long distance traffic unless you were to build a dedicated freight route from the channel to the north.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Yes, in the north, R4 was considered too far from London so wouldn't be justified, and in the south, R3 was too slow to be built, leading to the alignment being lost under the post-war urban sprawl. The M25 thus gained a short section linking R3 & R4 between Sevenoaks and Swanley, with the remaining eastern stub being dubbed the M26.

I remember there was huge opposition to the M25 being built down the Darenth Valley to the South of the Dartford crossing.
In the end a lot of the M25 was forced to follow the line of the A21.
The M26 was not the Eastern Stub of the M25. Or at least certainly the Eastern end of the M26 was the Western end of the M20 before the M20 was extended North Eastwards towards London.

The new LTC appears to be rejoining the M25 in the north around Upminster. My concern is overloading that northeastern section of the M25 further. I haven't travelled it for several years, but it was always very busy when I did. It's an interesting curiosity to me that the spot where it rejoins the M25 is not too far from where R4 would have joined R3 near Brentwood.

As can be seen here.

That is just the UK finding more and more use for an existing motorway and widening it later - or not.

I think it does if you're going to pump loads more traffic down it. In the south, yes, you can use the A228 and the M20 to get you between the M26 and the new link (or upgrade the A2 and really overload that added link section of the M25 south of Dartford), but I suspect in time the M26 could get extended to meet the M2/A2 junction by paralleling the M20 for a short distance then skirting the outskirts of the built up area along the A228. Depends how overloaded it all gets, I guess.

I do not see the point in improving a link from South M25 to the new crossing.
There should be enough demand siphoned of from the Dartford Crossing by linking the North M25 to the Channel crossing at Dover.
This means two different crossings for two different flows.

I often wonder what the Motorway network West of London should have been.
It would have been better to have South M25 going further North West linking onto the M40 and
a North M25 linking South East to the M3 (certainly the M4).
In other words a cross rather than a circle.
To me that is effectively what is happening to the East of London with the Lower Thames Crossing.

 

[I'm here now]

Carbon emissions will be reduced by electric vehicles/alternative fuels. Frustrated and delayed drivers cause accidents, so reducing congestion will hopefully reduce that. Pollution and noise will also be alleviated by reducing congestion.

I cannot understand why so many people seem to have this rail (and other public transport) vs. car mentality. They are complementary, not antagonistic. They are both useful. Most rail users drive.

Not really if people are forced into using their cars due to unreliable bus service caused by congestion from cars which shall undoubtedly happen with this and the dartford crossing.

First point - not if everyone is trying to transition at the same time (which they are) and extracting the whole of the earth and ruining the world for humans and nature due to a severe lack of foresight and ambition.

I do appreciate your opinion however, as much as I disagree with it.

 

[The exile]

A vehicle-pedestrian contact at 22mph transfers the same energy regardless of vehicle mass? That surprises me. Or does the speed they are accelerated to not usefully measure the impact?

Isn’t the point being made that any vehicle is so many times heavier than the pedestrian that a modest increase in vehicle weight will have less practical difference than (say) front end design?

 

[quantinghome]

First point - not if everyone is trying to transition at the same time (which they are) and extracting the whole of the earth and ruining the world for humans and nature due to a severe lack of foresight and ambition.

I don't want to derail this thread any further but do you have any evidence to back this claim up? The material requirements of EVs are orders of magnitude less ruinous than fossil fuel extraction. https://theicct.org/clearing-the-air-plenty-of-materials-for-evs-oct24/

 

[I'm here now]

I don't want to derail this thread any further but do you have any evidence to back this claim up? The material requirements of EVs are orders of magnitude less ruinous than fossil fuel extraction. https://theicct.org/clearing-the-air-plenty-of-materials-for-evs-oct24/

I don’t dispute that, yes I do with regards to the sources.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/01/do-electric-cars-have-problem-mining-for-minerals
(Whilst largely supportive, see bottom of article for bits surrounding human rights abuses)

https://theconversation.com/why-sur...ehicles-raises-environmental-red-flags-214808
That goes into their material and energy requirements, not just from manufacture.

https://theconversation.com/eco-fri...why-its-vital-to-cut-energy-demand-now-183567

Whilst the orders of magnitude of benefit can be massive, in theory, the size of the EVs are getting larger and eroding the road surface moreso. This will require more tarmac and bitumen for the surfaces (or something quasi-sustainable) to cope with our wants, not needs.

Human rights abuses - Chile salt lakes most prominent, water and wildlife.

I am not against EVs (rural areas could do with them), I am against their use as a blanket ‘solution’ to all our problems regarding transport.