£10bn to increase car traffic?
Lower Thames Crossing a 'guaranteed trip generator' with no bus or cycle crossing
The £10bn Lower Thames Crossing will offer no cycle lane or passenger bus to cross the river, and will instead use a single shuttle bus service to ferry cyclists across. The route will be a ‘guaranteed trip generator’ for motor traffic, sources tell me, and the government-owned company, National Highways (NH), is accused of ignoring active travel or public transport as a way to mitigate any predicted increase in car traffic and carbon emissions.
Despite government targets requiring cuts to transport emissions, NH has been accused of a lack of transparency around the carbon emissions and environmental impact of the new 14-mile route. And of using undue influence to gain permission to build the tunnel.
Following a Potholes and Pavements investigation into cycling provision on its roads in summer 2023, NH was accused of using a loophole to build shared pavements as standard, rather than dedicated cycle paths, contrary to government design standards. The problem isn’t the shared use itself, but the fact NH’s own lower standards permit far narrower paths to be built alongside fast-moving traffic, where cyclists need to give way at side roads. This makes cycling on those routes slow, cumbersome and dangerous as turning drivers, likely travelling at speed, aren’t prepared to expect someone on a bike crossing in front of them. NH since pledged to use government standards, aka LTN 1/20, on its routes instead.
The day the Development Consent Order was granted for the Lower Thames Crossing I started asking them questions about cycling plans in and around the route. Transport Action Network’s Chris Todd had raised concerns with NH at consultation stage and with me on the proposed provision on the proposed tunnel back in January. As seems increasingly familiar with NH the more you dig, the muddier things seem to get.
In 2023 National Highways promisingly told Ruth Cadbury MP it would also look at the rest of its network in relation to cycling, “in order to identify major or complex severance issues, as well as opportunities to connect with wider active travel provision, such as national cycle networks”.
However, when I asked 20 months on, how much of this assessment has been carried out to date, in terms of network mileage, National Highways didn’t respond.
It gets more concerning.
NH told me: “National Highways committed within its Development Consent Order for the Lower Thames Crossing to apply all relevant standards and guidance in the design of walking, cycling and horse riding routes, including LTN 1/20” – which sounds like it is leaving the option to apply its own lower standards. Indeed NH’s plans for bridges seem to show shared use path widths. More on this soon.
While NH says there will be 33km of new cycle routes around some of the new roads, totalling £1m of investment, or 0.01% of the total budget, there will be no way for cyclists to join traffic across the river; they’ll need to use a shuttle bus.
The nearest 24-hour crossing is 15 miles away at Tower Bridge. Anyone who has cycled that route knows it’s narrow and congested, often with angry drivers navigating the inner London ring road, of which it forms a part. 14 miles away is the Rotherhithe Tunnel, a narrow lane in each direction with a tiny pavement; if you miss the single drop kerb at the tunnel entrance you’re stuck on the road, heading up a tailback down into the tunnel and back up the other side. The Greenwich foot tunnel, 11.5 miles west, has notoriously unreliable lifts, and cycling through the tunnel is not permitted. The new Silvertown shuttle bus runs 6:30am to 9:30pm and the Woolwich ferry is 9 miles away and runs 6am-10pm – timings TAN says will exclude shift workers or access to night time entertainment.
The bike shuttle bus on the Dartford Crossing is an innovation recently deployed on the new Silvertown Crossing, to cyclists’ dismay. TAN points out Dartford’s bizarre operating hours: 3 – 9am, 10:30am – 2pm, 3 – 9pm and 10:30pm – 2am. Buses usually take 15 minutes to arrive (not ideal if you’re standing around in the cold or wet, mid-ride) and for non-standard cycles, bikes with trailers, or groups of more than three you have to pre-book.
Other than that, there is no bus service planned for the LTC, despite government body Active Travel England (ATE) inviting NH to ‘pump prime’, i.e. fund an express bus service that stops north and south of the crossing. While National Highways agreed it would be a good idea, it declined to provide the funding itself, saying this was the job of local authorities. NH’s response to invitations to produce an area-wide travel plan was the same. ATE suggested National Highways improve specific sections of cycle route in the area, from upgrading a footbridge where National Cycle Network route 77 will be temporarily rerouted during construction, to avoid cyclists having to dismount, and upgrade a substandard on-road bike lane on the A226, Gravesend Road. NH says local authorities will need to agree to allocate a portion of the £1m pot to schemes like this, following an assessment of each. I know from my book this kind of work can take years and by the time it’s complete the funding may no longer be available or construction is too far along to make changes.