What Effect Will Crossrail Have On The Dartford Crossing?
I asked yesterday, if we needed another crossing of the Thames.
Looking at the Crossrail web site, I see that from Shenfield to Whitechapel will take 39 minutes and Abbey wood to Whitechapel will take 25 minutes. So to do that into London and out again will take 54 minutes plus a couple of minutes for the change of train and direction at Whitechapel. the current journey incidentally takes around 90 minutes, but you can do it in a car in just under 50 minutes, assuming you get a good run over the bridge.
So it would appear that the Crossrail route would be about the same time as a car, which might or might not be enough to persuade travellers to go by rail.
There will also be opportunities to change at Stratford to HS2 to get into Kent. This won’t help the journeys such as Abbey Wood, but it would be a great help to such journeys as Colchester to Canterbury.
All of these options, might cut the number of car journeys over the Dartford Crossing. It would of course be helped by adequate car parking at the Crossrail stations.
The Anonymous Widower 
Having experienced the Dartford crossing on what was apparently a good day, we now avoid by going around the M25 the other way so we miss it altogether! Our daughter lives about 3 miles away from it, and it causes lot of traffic problems within Dartford itself
Comment by Liz P | May 23, 2013 |
You’re brilliantly illustrating the problem of Dartford. You should be travelling on the train on a distance like that! If because of your circumstances, you can’t then the trains should do something about providing a service you can use.
A big shopping centre either side of the crossing doesn’t help either.
Comment by AnonW | May 23, 2013 |
I can’t use trains as you know – but often when we go we are either taking or bringing back large amounts of things such as veggies from allotment which would be difficult/impossible by train, there are also several of us, which makes cost of public transport higher, especially as Neil gets personal mileage included with his company car. We drive in early hours of morning so after from around Dartford, there isn’t much traffic.
Comment by Liz Parkinson | May 23, 2013 |