Biggest congestion in the London area

A new report has identified the worst spots for traffic congestion in the UK and the top three places are all around the London area with the M25 London orbital featuring heavily.

The M25 is the motorway that runs for 117 miles circling Greater London and the M1 is the major motorway running north out of London to Yorkshire. The number one place to avoid jams is the section of the M1 from where it meets the M25 at Junction 6A to Junction 11 at Luton. I used to travel up that way a couple of times a week and the southbound lanes where always a crawl especially in the mornings. Junction 10 of the M1 is the turn off for Luton Airport and they’re currently widening the lanes of the motorway in that area so if you’re travelling by car to the airport during either rush hour allow a little extra time.

Second on the list is the western side of the M25 from Junction 9 at Leatherhead round to Junction 20 at Watford. Right in the middle of this section is the turn off for Heathrow Airport at Junction 15 and anyone who’s driven to Heathrow after about 8am knows how busy it can get here. Again its worth leaving early if you’re driving, there’s normally very slow traffic anti-clockwise from where the M1 joins the M25.

The third worst congestion area is the northern part of the M25 from Junction 21-28. This is near the area I live and at Junction 25 there’s a tunnel that’s having some major reconstruction work which was scheduled to take around 18 months. This always seems very gridlocked as traffic is squeezed through one or two lanes in the tunnel. A few miles on at Junction 27 is the connection with the M11 that runs north to Stansted Airport, so if you’re coming from the western side of London, heading for Stansted give yourself extra time to get there.

The whole of the M25 is down to have its lanes widened, but this is a project that will take years. If you’re new to driving around the London area, take on board that short journeys on the map can take a lot longer in reality.