Skip to playerSkip to main content
Evening Standard
  • 10 months ago
First Look inside Silvertown Tunnel
Transcript
00:00It's taken years to build and it will cost £2.2 billion in repayments.
00:05But in just a week's time, the Silvertown tunnel, here behind me, will open to traffic.
00:12The tunnel links the Royal Docks on the north side of the Thames in Canning Town
00:16with North Greenwich on the south side of the Thames.
00:19The aim of the tunnel is to try and alleviate the levels of congestion
00:23experienced at the Blackwall Tunnel.
00:26So Silvertown is designed to address the problems that we've got at Blackhall at the moment.
00:30So typically on a morning peak or afternoon you'll see 20-minute queues,
00:34people trying to cross the river there.
00:36And if you add into that the fact that we have to shut Blackhall 700 times a year,
00:42that causes absolute chaos.
00:44So typically sort of up to two mile queues and then when we have to shut it,
00:47that can extend to three miles and sometimes over a much greater area of East London.
00:51So for many decades, East London's been plagued by the Blackhall,
00:56meaning it's unreliable, people don't have confidence
00:58in how they can cross the river in this part of London.
01:01And one of the important things with TfL as well
01:03is how we can improve public transport across the river.
01:06So the Silvertown resolves those issues.
01:08It provides an alternative to Blackhall to take away the queuing
01:11and obviously the environmental and the economic impacts that that queuing has,
01:16provides a reliable alternative when we do need to close Blackhall
01:20and enables us to make a real change in terms of cross-river services.
01:24Transport for London expects around 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles a day
01:29to use the Silvertown tunnel.
01:31There are tolls that will be imposed on all kinds of vehicles coming through the tunnel.
01:36The same tolls will be imposed on the Blackhall tunnel.
01:39In general, the tolls will be £1.50 per crossing off-peak and £4 at peak times.
01:46The Silvertown tunnel itself is around one and a half kilometres long.
01:50There are actually two tunnels, one going north and one going south,
01:54and they have two lanes each.
01:56One of these lanes is for buses and the other's for other vehicles.
02:00If you're a cyclist though, you will have to use the Silvertown cycle bus.
02:04You cannot cycle through this tunnel or through the Blackwall tunnel.
02:08So how does it compare to the Blackwall tunnel,
02:10which is essentially just next door on the south side of the Thames,
02:15the entrances or the exits to the Blackwall tunnel on the south
02:18are right alongside the Silvertown tunnel?
02:21Well, the Blackwall tunnel is again two tunnels,
02:24but one of the tunnels, the 1897 tunnel, is particularly narrow.
02:29The southbound tunnel on the Blackwall tunnel is much bigger.
02:31That was opened in 1967.
02:34This tunnel, the Silvertown tunnel,
02:36is probably slightly bigger than the bigger of the two Blackwall tunnels.
02:40What's it like?
02:41Well, it's just a road tunnel really.
02:42The issue is what difference will it make to traffic,
02:45and will it cause congestion at either end of the entrances and exits
02:50as traffic comes above ground?
02:52The Silvertown tunnel will open to traffic on Monday the 7th of April.
02:57Charging will begin at 6am.
03:00The issue is whether Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London,
03:03who has essentially given approval for this scheme,
03:06whether he will be here to essentially perform the official opening.
03:09Many of his critics have described this tunnel as his
03:12dirty little secret, but there's every chance now that it's about to open
03:16that the Mayor will essentially take ownership of the project,
03:19which will bring in many millions over the coming years for Transport for London.
Be the first to comment
Add your comment

Recommended

First Look Inside The Brand New Silvertown Tunnel V2
Evening Standard
2 years ago
Silvertown Tunnel opens - with car drivers paying up to £4 to use first new Thames tunnel for 58 years
Evening Standard
10 months ago
London Transport: latest travel round-up
National World - LocalTV
10 months ago
Tunnelen (The Tunel) - Teaser Trailer in Norwegian
FilmAffinity
6 years ago
Boring machine breaks through HS2 tunnel
National World - Viral Videos
3 months ago
First new road crossing east of Tower Bridge since 1991 opens on Monday
National World - LocalTV
10 months ago
What's it like inside the Silvertown Cycle Bus
Evening Standard
10 months ago
Silvertown Tunnel opens to drivers in London
ODN
10 months ago
Detroit’s Border Tunnel | Detroit-Windsor Tunnel: A Historic Engineering Marvel
Mediakraft TV
3 years ago
Scarborough South Cliff Gardens tunnel
Yorkshire Post
4 years ago
Ramsgate Tunnel car blaze
KentOnline / KMTV
7 months ago
West Gate Tunnel safety, Metro Rail Tunnel opening and SRL funding in the spotlight
ABC NEWS (Australia)
2 months ago
Watch the moment teenager driver caught driving the wrong way in London's Blackwall Tunnel
LondonWorld
4 years ago
The Tunnel - 5 avril
Tele-Loisirs.fr
2 years ago
Street art in Como tunnel
The Leader
2 months ago
Motorist Drives Through Flooded Tunnel
AlArabiya English
6 months ago
Cycling through Edinburgh's Innocent Railway tunnel
Edinburgh Evening News
4 years ago
Tunnel boring machines preposition in East Valenzuela for excavation of Metro Manila Subway
PTVPhilippines
3 years ago
Silvertown and Blackwall tunnel tolls won't be scrapped, says Sadiq Khan
Evening Standard
1 year ago
The Architecture The Railways Built, Bramhope Tunnel, Episode 4
Yorkshire Evening Post
4 years ago
Steam loco Britannia at Severn Tunnel Junction
Tindle News
9 months ago
Bande-annonce - Tunnel (Canal+)
Tele-Loisirs.fr
4 years ago
Melbourne metro tunnel begins its first trial runs this winter
ABC NEWS (Australia)
8 months ago
Moment Pep Guardiola reacts to Manchester City’s derby loss
The Independent
4 hours ago
Roy Keane unleashes dig at Michael Carrick in Man Utd rant on live TV
The Independent
5 hours ago