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Good progress has been made on the M25 in Surrey where engineers are demolishing a bridge, National Highways has said, as traffic queues built up again on Sunday morning in the lead-up to the closure.
A five-mile stretch between junctions 10 and 11 has been shut in both directions since 9pm on Friday and won’t reopen until 6am on Monday.
It comes after drivers were warned to stay at home as the unprecedented closure of the motorway was expected to cause a “carmageddon” of gridlock traffic this weekend.
“We made good progress during the first night of the M25 J10 to J11 weekend closure,” National Highways said on Saturday.
“We will again work throughout the night to continue the demolition and gantry installations. There are minimal delays in the area at this time.”
It is the first planned daytime closure of the motorway – which encircles London – since it opened in 1986. National Highways said its modelling indicated vehicles would face delays of up to five hours without mitigation measures, such as urging drivers to stay away.
Queues remain light on either side of the M25 closure, traffic cameras show.
A camera in the run-up to Junction 10 shows cars lined up tightly on the approach to the diversion, as they have been all morning.
While the two cameras in the approach to Junction 11 are out of action, there appears to be less than 2km of congestion in the lead-up to the diversion there.
Cars can be seen lining up on the approach to the diversion at Junction 10
Simon Calder: Why not open stretch of closed M25 to cyclists and pedestrians?
The Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder has suggested opening up part of the closed-off stretches of the M25 to cyclists and pedestrains during the four upcoming shutdowns.
He writes: “I do not suggest that visitors should play among the bulldozers as the workers energetically pursue the Monday morning reopening deadline.
“But since several miles of motorway are entirely unoccupied, I commend properly organised walks and bike rides along the empty carriageways.
“Abu Dhabi opens its Formula One circuit regularly to pedestrians, runners and cyclists, and the M25 could provide the same temporary playground. To quote H G Wells once again, “a beautiful serenity” deserves to be appreciated.
Average of 100 vehicles per minute typically fly past Byfleet on M25
Byfleet and West Byfleet became estranged in the early 1980s. What came between them was an 80-yard-wide cutting carrying six lanes of traffic – later “densified” to eight lanes. Over a normal weekend, every minute an average of 100 cars, lorries and buses barrel through this deep divide.
Ten miles to the north: Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow; 20 miles southeast, the UK’s main holiday airport, Gatwick. And wherever you want to go in Britain, if you can’t access it from a motorway or A-road junction on the M25, it’s probably not worth going.
Since Margaret Thatcher opened the full circuit in 1986, the M25 has become one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in Europe. For the first time, a daytime closure is taking place. A stretch of the motorway southwest of London is shut for the weekend, until 6am on Monday.
The aim: to improve Junction 10, where the M25 meets the A3 trunk road linking London with Guildford and Portsmouth (not to mention Chessington World of Adventures). The only way to do this is to close the entire five-mile stretch to Junction 11:
Simon Calder, Travel Correspondent17 March 2024 12:00
Only minor traffic queues in run-up to diversion this morning
Traffic cameras appear to show little traffic on the approaches to Junctions 10 and 11, where the diversion is in force.
The Evening Standard had reported an hour ago that Inrix data suggested around 2km of traffic had been building to the north of the road closure at Junction 11, near Chertsey.
A closed section of the M25 between Junctions 10 and 11
“By Byfleet station we emerged from the pine trees, and found the country calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight.”
I recalled that line – from H G Wells’s War of the Worlds – at West Byfleet station in Surrey as I emerged from the first train of the morning from London on Saturday.
In this leafy corner of the home counties, all was “calm and peaceful under the morning sunlight” – until the first Bulgarian truck came thundering through. The lorry had been diverted from its planned trajectory by the unprecedented closure of a stretch of the M25 orbital motorway around London. And the A245 between Byfleet and West Byfleet has become part of a diversionary route – as well, I was to discover, as a temporary tourist attraction:
Traffic along diversion not as bad as feared, councillor says
Amanda Boote, of Woking Borough Council, has told the PA news agency that traffic along the diversion route through the towns of Byfleet, West Byfleet, Woking and Ottershaw was not as bad as feared.
Congestion stretched for two miles on Saturday morning, according to National Highways South-East, and the estimated average journey time through the 11.5-mile diversion route was 25 minutes.
NHSE said on Saturday it had made good progress during the first night of work.
