The A316 is one of two major westerly arterial roads from London: it turns into the M3. It is surrounded by rabbit warren suburbs where cars are parked both sides of the road and buses can barely pass. If there's an accident on the A316 and they close the road, that's it. You're taking four lanes of heavy fast-moving traffic east- and west- bound and dumping it on two-lane side roads bristling with right turns, traffic lights, mini-roundabouts, traffic-calming and bus lanes. Ain't gonna move. Which it didn't this evening. I left Richmond at six o'clock, saw that the A316 wasn't moving and tried every back street I knew. All of them. Jammed. It took seventy minutes to make a journey that takes ten minutes when the road is clear. I thought I was going to run out of petrol. It was the kind of journey that reminded me of why people arrive home and pour themselves a stiff drink.
The traffic was made worse, and I was only driving in the first place, by the fact that the trains on the Reading and Windsor lines through Richmond aren't getting any further than the western edge of Hounslow Heath. A one-hundred year-old tunnel to take the River Crane under the railway had its foundations washed away by the recent heavy rain. No trains may safely pass. I've been driving to within walking distance of Richmond and catching the trains or tubes. It adds twenty minutes to the commute either way. If I took the emergency buses, it would add forty-five minutes. Which you really want, to be stuck on an emergency bus, stinking of desiel fumes, crawling through school-run SUV hell, at 07:45 in the morning. That would make my day. I'm glad this week is over.
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