Talk:M25 motorway

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M25 motorway is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.

Contents 1 Fence 2 Junction Guide or map 3 Opening date 4 Ring Road 5 Busiest motorway of Europe 6 Distance around the M25 7 Nickname 8 Traffic Wave Congestion 9 Advertising? 10 Racing 11 References in Common Culture 12 Six lanes each way in at least one place 13 Junction 5

[edit] Fence

Is it a pollution control fence between J11 and J10? HOw does it work? Rich Farmbrough 09:35, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Junction Guide or map

Both of theses wuld be useful if created, not really sure where to start from. Might make a Junctin guide with the roard that comes off possibly.

[edit] Opening date

I reverted the opening date to 1975 - that's when the first section of M25. Though I thought about adding a category to the template box for "date of completion to current length" - thoughts/ideas? Erath 09:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

It is incredibly misleading to say opening date 1975. The idea of the infobox is to get the basic facts without reading the whole article. I think it is failing the reader if it implies the whole road was complete in 1975, when it was how much at that point? One or two junctions worth? MRSC 10:05, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I do take your point on board - but then consistency becomes a problem with other motorways. We can't go out and say the M1 was completed in 1999, when it was a significant motorway when it first opened in 1959. That's why I suggested adding a "Date opened" and "Date completed" section. Erath 10:40, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. MRSC 11:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Done. Erath 11:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ring Road

Just for the files: the A10 round German capital of Berlin is a 196km long ring road, so the M25 is surely not worlds biggest ring road. See http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesautobahn_10 for reference.

Ok, I am correcting this in the article then. Hardouin 15:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

As Hardouin does not seem to have corrected it, I did it now. In a gracious manner, however. It now reads "to be one of the longest city bypasses" instead of "to be the longest city bypass".

No no, I had corrected it, but someone removed my correction in the meantime. Nationalism is running high on Wikipedia unfortunately... Hardouin 02:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Busiest motorway of Europe

As for ring road length above, this statement is also untrue. The Périphérique of Paris had between 1.1 and 1.2 million cars per day in 2002, which is almost 6 times more than the M25. So I corrected the statement in the article. Hardouin 15:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hold on a minute. 1.2 million cars per day is an awful lot. That would be nearly 14 cars per second - i.e. not far short of 2 cars per second per lane, probably much closer separation at peak times! Do Parisiens really drive like that, or perhaps are the statistics used for the Périph different from that of the M25?

The M25's usage statistics that are usually quoted are the average number of vehicles passing a particular point per day (referred to as AADT in official statistics), at the point where it's being measured. The total number of vehicles using the M25 as part of the journey will be much higher, as most people will be only using a part of the M25

The high figure for the number of cars sharing the same lane per second if the 1.2 million figure quoted above for the Périphérique is generated like that of the M25 suggests to me that the figure is actually likely to be the total number of vehicles using a part of the Periph per day.

This site suggests an AADT of only 120,000 vehicles per day, much less than that of the M25's western section.

I think more investigation is necessary into what the figures are, and what exactly they describe. Richard B 01:52, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, there are also other concurrents. The BAB100 in Berlin (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesautobahn_100) counts up to 216.000 vehicles passing a particular point per day (e.g. Dreieck Funkturm). In the German wikipedia it was called up to today "Europe's busiest motorway". I just changed it to be "one of Europe's busiest motorways", as to me it seems to be quite comparable to the M25. In regard to the Périphérique I can definately say that it has sometimes 2, sometimes 3 lanes per direction, and that it is half of the day completely congested. A reasonable estimation to me would be a maximum of 150.000 vehicles using a part of the Periph per day.
--NYR

Nope 1.2 million car per days for 32 km the average distance traversed by a driver is 7km Make the calculus 1,200,000/32*7= 262,200 and you can see the average traffic of Paris peripherique is 262,200 cars per day The busiest part can easy has 300,000 cars per day. Minato ku 23:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)Minato Ku

You can always twist statistics to have them say whatever you need to prove your point. What I find particularly annoying is the overall nationalist tone of this article ("the M25 is the longest orbital motorway in the world", "the M25 is the busiest motorway in Europe"). Now you say that we should count vehicules passing at a particular point per day, not vehicules for the overall motorway. Ok. According to this webpage from the French Senate ([1]), in 2002 traffic on the A4 motorway near Saint-Maurice, in the suburbs of Paris, was 275,000 vehicules per day. So that's much higher than either Dreieck Funkturm in Berlin, or M25 near Heathrow Airport. And that was 4 years ago. As everybody who have been to Paris recently would know, traffic in the Paris metropolitan area has increased a lot in the recent years, so the figure for A4 near Saint-Maurice is probably higher now than in 2002. Hardouin 03:57, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Of cause, thats true. It is probably just that one has to find something special to justify an entry in wikipedia. In general, an entry for a motorway is quite boring and without much really helpful information. Might it be a better solution to just delete all these more or less speculative and rather hard to prove statements? If not, denoting at least which criterium was used to justify the statement, e.g. "vehicules passing at a particular point per day" like you did is a good start. :) NYR 10:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Wait wait wait, you're saying that having a big, busy motorway round your capital should be a source of nationalist pride? You twisted continentals... :P --zippedmartin 13:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Distance around the M25

How much difference is there in distance travelled between the innermost and outermost lanes of the M25 if you were to drive all the way round? (My husband thinks about 160m... anyone know better?)

The calculation would depend on the various lane-drops and gains that exist on the M25 - some bits have 2 lanes, some 3, some 4 and I think a small section even has 6.

For the sake of doing a rough calculation - let's assume that our hypothetical M25 follows the same route as the real one - but has exactly 3 lanes in each direction - and also that the M25 is continuous (i.e. that the A282 is actually the M25)

The difference in distance between the line that forms the hard-shoulder, and the line between the lanes and the central reservation - with the above assumptions - would be approximately 70 metres (= 2 x pi x 11m - 11m being the width between hard shoulder and central reservation line on a 3-lane motorway)

The fact that the M25 has sections with different number of lanes would alter this slightly - as would the fact that the Dartford crossing is in fact the A282. Richard B 18:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Double that to include all six lanes (both directions) and the central reservation equals 140m. Sp3ktor 14:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The only complication you're adding by including both directions (i.e. asking the question how much further is it if you travel round clockwise than anticlockwise) - is that the M25's carriageways do not have a fixed distance between them at all points. The carriageways split apart near to Junction 23, and at J5. The Dartford crossing (of the A282 - but included in my calculation above) has one carriageway over the bridge - whilst the other is in the tunnel - so a fair separation in both distance and height) Richard B 20:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nickname

Should this article mention the various nicknames given to this piece of tarmac hell? It is frequently referred to as 'the road to hell' (as hinted at in the article when mentioning the song of the same name) and the 'magic roundabout'. Also, the lane info seems very much out of date. It is 4 lanes each way virtually all way round now with only a fraction at 3 lanes each way. The new parts near Staines and Heathrow are 5 or 6 lanes each way.

[edit] Traffic Wave Congestion

This would be a good article to reference the phenomenon of the progressive speed modulation of heavy traffic which often occurs on the M25. Perhaps somebody who knows more than me about queuing theory could add somethingChrisAngove 16:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising?

Advertising? Wiki terrorism? Oh yeah? This bit ought to go.82.15.46.131 22:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I've removed this section now as it looked like blatant advertising/spam to me. Apart from anything else it referred to an event which 'happened' in November 2007 which obviously can't be fact. I'm sure if people disagree then my edits will be reverted anyway! TrevelyanD 21:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Racing

I've added a section about the races/time trials that occurred in the late 80's based on the BBC Radio 4 programme. It would be interesting to find out more information about this, particularly as the emergency services made their predictable play of how very naughty it was without any evidence of accidents, deaths or injuries.

Since more general, unreferenced, ancidotes can't be placed on the main page I've created this talk page thread as a collection point.

TVR SEAC Tony Dron & Chris Schirle – Pulled by police and failed to complete. [2]

“	I recall there were some cars with a small discrete sticker on the rear window that had a M25 map (a la ring map) with sub60 or <60 in the middle. You had to a lap in under 60 mins to earn the sticker. I think it meant an average of 117 MPH.	”
—bobt

“	Back in 2002 (funnily enough, in the GT2!!) i did a lap in 45 mins and something seconds. No video evidence though. (146ish average).	”
—lonman

Another PistonHeads thread from 2002 [3]

-- John 13:43, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

The article mentions finacial workers in Docklands and talks of the 80's most of the financial buildings in the docklands (canary wharf) were not finished til the early nineties were they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.22.97.146 (talk) 20:20, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I was repeating what the radio prog. said - if you've got better info. and references then feel free to modify it. -- John (Daytona2 · Talk · Contribs) 08:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References in Common Culture

In attempting to wikify the Andy Hamilton link to show the Divine Comedy reference (as a reader might not know the Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate reference), it simply broke again. And again. And again. Can someone who is more gifted in Wikipedia-fu than I do it? Jessica Schmidt (talk) 21:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Presumably they have changed the heading ? The future proofed way of doing it would be to anchor the heading and placing a comment that it's linked to here, but I can't remember how to do it <g> ! Perhaps WikiQuote is more appropriate in any case, and the same applies there, no doubt - Wikiquote:Inferno#Canto_III:_The_gate_of_hell -- John (Daytona2 · talk) 23:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this what you're after ? -

M25, "abandon hope all ye who enter here; no services until Junction 12".

-- John (Daytona2 · talk) 23:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Six lanes each way in at least one place

Around the Heathrow T4&T5/Staines area the M25 is 6 lanes in each direction (plus hard shoulders) and has been for a few years now. Surely that warrants a mention? Anyone know if that is an EU record? This is uninterrupted carriageway, it's not a series of separated carriageways that just happen to be next to each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.182.109 (talk) 23:08, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

According to CBRD the M61 at Linnyshaw Moss, Greater Manchester (close to the M60 interchange), which has 17 separate traffic lanes side by side, spread across several parallel carriageways. However, a look on the ground makes it clear that there are 18 lanes parallel for a very short while (aerial photographs confirm this).Blackwave...... (talk) 11:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Junction 5

On the Junctions list it saysthat you can access M26 Eastbound fron junction 5 on the M25 Anticlockwise and not clockwise. This is the exact opposite, and also to access A21 (S) from M25 Clockwise. See Link. This image is on the M26 Eastbound beginning just after the M25 uses a slip road.Blackwave...... (talk) 10:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)