Talk:Dartford Crossing

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	Dartford Crossing has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result July 12, 2014 Good article nominee Listed December 5, 2017 WikiProject A-class review Approved
	A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on July 14, 2014. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Dartford Crossing is the busiest estuarial crossing in the United Kingdom?
Current status: Good article

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I'm a bit confused: the opening paragraph says:'It opened in stages: the west tunnel in 1963, the east tunnel in 1980

but when you go to 'History' of the 'Western Tunnel' it says: ' Kent and Essex County Councils successfully levied a toll on the tunnel before it opened in 1960. The two-lane bore tunnel opened to traffic on 18 November 1963

Which seems a little contradictory, and a bit vague.

Can anyone clarify? Thanks ray — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ray van Avond (talk • contribs) 15:22, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Ray van Avond: It's exactly as the sources say. The Ministry of Transport (as was) had to get the relevant Act of Parliaments authorised before the tunnel could open, or it would be illegal to charge a toll. So the act was authorised in 1960 in the projection stage as part of advance planning. It was two-lane, one in each direction, or what SABRE calls "S2". This was obviously unable to cope with increasing traffic, hence the second tunnel opening, giving you a 2xD2 (ie: two lanes in each direction). If you've got more questions about the crossing specifically, as opposed to suggestions for improving this article, I'd recommend popping over to the SABRE forums and having a look. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:41, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just butting in here, Ritchie333 and Ray van Avond, sorry ... But it confuses me too. My understanding of the present wording, particularly of the word "levied", is that the county councils were in receipt of money from tolls on the tunnel before it opened, in 1960, which does seem odd – is that the case? Wasn't 1960 when the county councils won the right to levy tolls, and 1963 when the tunnel opened to traffic, and the county councils began to levy tolls? Butting out now ... Nortonius (talk) 18:51, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The source used for this claim says : "County Councils had borrowing powers and could enhance them with parliamentary powers to levy tolls. Kent and Essex sought them in 1930, 1937 and 1956 and 1960 - before the first tunnel opened." Does that help at all? How about "Kent and Essex County Councils obtained government approval to charge tolls in 1960, before opening"? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:53, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ritchie, yes that makes much more sense to me! I hoped it'd be as simple as that ...! Cheers. Nortonius (talk) 21:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I notice a second infobox was added for the QE2 bridge, but in my view it degraded the layout of the page substantially, knocking several images out of alignment. It would be better to integrate any important information into the existing infobox at the top of the page. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:38, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's elevated but not overhead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.149.241.57 (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So something ive noticed recently as a few Facebook pages ran an article on the crossing.

It seems many believe the crossing was sold to the French, or profits from it go to the French, or is otherwise ran by the French.

It seems when you Google "Who owns the Dartford crossing" or similar, many get this line on Wikipedia.

"Although the website for paying the charge is operated by the UK Government, the day-to-day operations are run by French public roads operator Société des Autoroutes du Nord et de l'Est de la France (SANEF)."

Might it be worth restructuring this section to better reflect the actuality of the situation? The Government have a fantastic write up of the history of management for the crossing in their annual accounts - https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/dartford-thurrock-crossing-annual-accounts-2021-to-2022 - which may be better to source, as it seems many are understanding this line to mean the French somehow runs the entire crossing.

Might be a rather large restructure however, so thought best to get thoughts on first. Garfie489 (talk) 18:59, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well it's been getting on for ten years since the article passed GA, so maybe I should have a look and give it an overhaul in the coming week. Although I'm not sure exactly where in that source says something different from what the article currently says? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:41, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Its more it seems the current writing is being misunderstood. It doesnt give enough context, and the algorithms for when people look up information directs them wrongly. The "day to day" operations of the crossing are run by Highways England, and its simply only the charging system which has any French involvement. However the management structure of the crossing is not highlighted in detail, in fact no where does it explicitly state Highways England manage the crossing - which then likely leads the search engines to wrongly focus on the charging system. Now whilst i accept we are not responsible for the search engine algorithms, as a source of information its maybe at least worth a section on the management of the crossing in detail as per the Governments own papers - which the camera system can be mentioned in as a note to put it into wider context. Garfie489 (talk) 21:29, 15 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]