Author: Jonathan Rothwell

TfL are consulting on changes to the Lower Lea Crossing and Aspen Way Roundabout. It’s not too bad—tweaking some crossings here, widening some cycle tracks there, etc.

But it’s also not especially transformative: there’s already a cycle track here, and it already provides an important connection to the Royal Docks. Some of the changes will be nice to have, but they could’ve been better. One arm of Aspen Way roundabout on the north side, amazingly, still won’t even have crossings!

The bad news is that this scheme ties in to the Tidal Basin Roundabout and the Silvertown Tunnel. The Tunnel will bring much, much more traffic to the Lower Lea Crossing and Aspen Way. Maybe these changes to the Lower Lea Crossing cycle track are an attempt to mitigate these negative effects—but they’re nowhere near enough.

The consultation is open until Monday 12th February. We recommend responding and telling TfL:

• The scheme won’t really make a difference to the number of people walking and cycling in the area.
• TfL should build crossings on all arms of the Aspen Way roundabout, and they should all be separated for walking and cycling (no shared areas please.)
• In the medium term, TfL should look at grade-separating walking and cycling at the roundabouts, like at the Green Man Roundabout.
• Where the cycle track is interrupted for servicing entrances, drivers of servicing vehicles need to be given adequate warning to watch for people walking and cycling.
• The main problem in the area will still be the Silvertown Tunnel, a 1960s quality urban motorway scheme which shouldn’t have been approved. This scheme, combined with the threadbare bus network and silly cycle shuttle bus, comes across as a tick-box exercise to let the Tunnel’s promoters pretend they’re doing something worthwhile for people who don’t have a car, don’t want one, or can’t afford one.

You can also read our consultation response here:

TfL are consulting on a long-awaited and much-needed new crossing of the Thames east of Tower Bridge. The bad news is, it’s not the bridge that got cancelled, or even a high quality RoRo ferry like the ones in Amsterdam. Why have an actual cycle crossing, or even a ferry you can cycle onto, when you could have… a bus with some bike racks?

This is part of the new Silvertown Tunnel scheme, a new crossing for cars and lorries (with a piecemeal bus network) that will run from the Royal Docks to North Greenwich. We oppose this scheme as it stands, and this—presumably intended to say the scheme does something for cycling—is frankly embarrassing. There are many reasons it won’t work:

• Larger cargo cycles unlikely to fit (meaning deliveries by car or van would enjoy an unfair advantage over zero-emissions last mile freight)
• Adapted cycles are unlikely to fit—especially if the bus eventually looks like a minivan with a trailer
• Unpredictable journey times
• Low capacity that doesn’t allow for large volumes of people cycling
• No clarity on what form the service will take, frequencies, operating hours, or whether a fare will be charged
• The physical awkwardness of dismounting and loading your cycle into racks when getting on/off. We find it hard to believe the Silvertown Tunnel would’ve been approved if drivers had to load their cars onto car transporters to be driven through the tunnel

We can’t support the cycle bus scheme because it’s not viable as a 24/7, step-free, accessible cycle crossing that people will be able to use independently. Historical precedent suggests it is doomed to failure. It’s a box-ticking exercise that allows the promoters of the Silvertown Tunnel to pretend they’re doing something for people who don’t have a car, don’t want one, or can’t afford one.

Because of this, we have no confidence in TfL or the current Mayor delivering a viable cycle crossing east of Tower Bridge—despite the fact we desperately need them. We would love to be proven wrong, so invite TfL to seek funding for and commit to things that would actually work, including:

• Increasing frequency and operating hours on the Woolwich Ferry, and removing the need for cyclists to dismount on the ferry decks
• Abolishing fares on the Cable Car and extending operating hours
• A new ferry at Rotherhithe, which TfL’s own modelling suggests could be very popular
• Pedestrianising the Rotherhithe Tunnel, or the Blackwall Tunnel’s original Victorian bore (by TfL’s own omission, not suitable for high volumes of motor traffic, and built with a bend to prevent horses from bolting)
• Building new fixed links—be that new cycle-only bores for the existing foot tunnels, or reviving the Rotherhithe Bridge proposal

Tell TfL to stop making excuses & do better

There’s a consultation open until this Sunday (10th September) where you can tell TfL what you think of these proposals. We’ve posted our response below in case you need inspiration, but we recommend telling them:

• East London is crying out for actual river crossings that don’t require a car
• A bus service that allows people to bring bikes as luggage is fundamentally flawed & won’t meet that demand
• TfL should be prioritising high-quality crossings that would actually scale to large volumes of cyclists—ferries at the very minimum, and fixed crossings in the longer term