m25 and lhr r3
FdF re yr " the above and m25 widening will be needed without a 3rd rwy":
its only 7 years since it was extensively widened prior to opening of t5 ( in 2008). at that time a 3rd rwy was very much in the frame, remember it only got the thumbs down when the coalition came in in 2010. so the planners of the widening must have reckoned that their scheme was all that was required for next 20/30 years of a 3 rwy lhr. they surely didnt say we are only building this for a seven year life cos we think/know we will all be back here still arguing in 2015. ( maybe they gambled on r3 not going ahead ).
Perhaps "widening" was the wrong word, perhaps "reconfiguring" would have been better. The reason it will have to be done anyway is that this stretch of the M25 has too many junctions on top of each other and this does not help.
It encourages local traffic and junction-hopping on what was designed as a bypass, and that means mass lane changing which slows everything down. This has never been addressed in all the previous widening schemes.
Amsterdam......2787 Hectares
Paris CDG........3238 Hectares
Heathrow.........1214 Hectares
Give up......move away....build Boris Island. Has "EGLE" been reserved for London East????
Never going to happen. Expand the hectarage, use the open land safeguarded for the purpose since the 1940s.
Forget Boris Island, that particular ship sailed in the 1970s.
As for Heathrow's ability to finance R3, Davies has shown that this will require a substantial uplift in airport charges. But Davies felt this was achievable, even if HAL has to fund the £6bn in surface access costs.
Not a problem at LHR, carriers (and therefore their pax) will pay it. The same cannot be said for LGW: the rise in airport charges will be relatively greater and there is no guarantee that carriers will be happy to pay it.