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Evening Standard
  • 3/31/2025
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.

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