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The motorway is mostly three-laned although there are a few short stretches which are two-laned and perhaps one sixth which is four-laned, around the southwestern corner. It is thought to be Europe's busiest motorway: an estimated 200,000 vehicles a day make use of it, up from 100,000 a day in 1987.
The M25 is not circular since to the east of London for the toll crossing of the Thames between Thurrock and Dartford is renumbered the A282. The Dartford Crossing, which consists of two tunnels and a bridge, is also named Canterbury Way. Also, at junction 5 near Sevenoaks, to continue around the M25 requires the driver to take an off-ramp as main road continues east (without a way off) as the M26 and on to the M20. From the north the road straight on becomes the A21 towards the south coast.
The M25's name inspired the name of the electronica duo, OrbitalOrbital is an English electronic music duo formed in 1989 ( 1989 in music) consisting of the brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll. Orbital takes its name from the raves that occurred in the late 1980s near the M25 orbital motorway that circles London. In 1989, although a pre-cursor of the M25 was the North Orbital road.
The idea of an orbital road around London was first proposed early in the 20th century, through the Lutyens and Bressey plans of 1937 to the Abercrombie Plan of 1945 which proposed a series of five individual roads around the capital. Over time successive governments reduced this grandiose scheme to the Greater London Development Plan - a combination of two rings into one, the M25, and a smaller inner ring, initially hoped to become the M15, but currently still the A406.
The entire orbital was constructed in a number of stages from around 1975 up until 1985. The sections were not constructed contiguously but in small sections, such as Dartford to Swanley (Junction 1 to Junction 3) or Potters BarPotters Bar is a town in Hertfordshire, England, just north of London. It has a population of about 20,000. The town started life in the early 13th century and remained more or less unchanged until the arrival of the railway in the 1850s. It was originall to Waltham Cross (J24 to J25), and later joined. Each section was presented to planning authorities in its own right and was individually justified; there were almost forty public inquiries relating to sections of the route. Maps at this time depicting the short sections named the route as the M16 but this changed prior to completion.
The M25 was officially opened in October, 1986 with a ceremony by Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS (born October 13, 1925) is a British politician and the first woman Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a position she held from 1979 to 1990. She is a member of the Conservative Party and still opening the section between Junctions 22 and 23 ( London ColneyLondon Colney is a village in Hertfordshire, England. It is near St Albans and part of the St Albans District. At the time of the 2001 census the population of London Colney ward was 7,742. By repute it is the second largest village in the United Kingdom, and South MimmsSouth Mimms is a location in Hertfordshire that was originally part of the traditional county of Middlesex Middlesex Hertfordshire.).
More recently, the perenially congested south-western stretch of the M25 (near WokingWoking is a large town in England, in the west of Surrey. It is about 30 minutes by train from London. Woking was formed around the station built there over 150 years ago to act as a junction between trains to the south coast and the necropolis railway to) was fitted with an experimental automated traffic control system called MIDAS (Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling). This consists of a distributed network of traffic and weather sensors, speed cameras and variable speed signs which control traffic speeds with little human supervision. The system successfully reduced congestion and it is hoped that MIDAS will be fitted to the rest of the M25 in due course.
The M25 is known for its frequent jams. These have been the subject of so much comment from such an early stage that even at the official opening ceremony Margaret Thatcher complained about "those who carp and criticise". The jams have inspired jokes ("the world's biggest car park"), songs ( Chris Rea 's "The Road to Hell") and the following tongue-in-cheek theory: