Tower Hamlets road users would find themselves with a case of agoraphobia if they were to venture to the Orkneys.
For the group of Scottish islands has a commodious 49m of road per person. The London borough has just 0.9m. They represent the best and worst in the country, according to the Department of Transport.
At 90cm per person – a third the length of a Smart car – Tower Hamlets would only just accommodate everybody standing in a line along its roads – and even that would leave no space for commuters and delivery drivers that bring East London to a halt on a daily basis.
Smart car, 2.6m long
Scotland enjoys the highest quality roads overall while the South East has all the lowest 27 in the league table – with inner London the congestion hotspot.
This is partly due to a surge in the number of inner-London residents. The number of households in this area increased by 78,000 from 2011 to 2015, which is the equivalent of dropping the population of Portsmouth into the centre of the city.
Road congestion answers
Data from traffic information supplier Inrix shows that London is the most congested city in western Europe, costing the economy £6.2 billion last year.
Investigations into easing congestion have included central depots for delivery drivers – to avoid the fleet of white vans hitting the capital’s roads delivering parcels – and greater use of public transport and cycling – which is Mayor Sadiq Khan’s theme in his 25-year draft Transport strategy
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AA president Edmund King said: “These figures show that millions of residents in the South East don’t even get three metres of road per person, while those in some rural areas get access to more than 10 times that.
“AA research has found that, even when they get home, 20% of people fret about finding a parking space and up to 13% put off trips to avoid losing the parking spot outside their house.
“In London, that rises to 36% suffering parking paranoia and 24% sometimes abandoning trips.”