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So its called the Emirates Air Line and its pissing some people off http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1117994/Barclays-Emirates-TfL-sponsorship-deals-fire/
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More disgusting corporate sponsorship.
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They keep getting wonga and getting it wronga and wronga.
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Also in a very different place.
It's a shame, I still think the Sustrans bridge would have had a chance as part of the Olympics if they had concentrated on it. But of course that's pure speculation on my part.
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I don't personally care about the sponsorship. If some airline is prepared to pay for a piece of public infrastructure in these cash strapped times, great. The current Government won't.
What I do care about is that, as Tiswas said, this is yet another Boris vanity project. He promised that this wouldn't cost London tax payers a penny and said it would cost £25 million to build. The total cost has ended up being £60m, of which £45m is construction costs. Emirates are paying £36m. It doesn't even cover building the thing.
I wouldn't mind so much if it was actually useful, but TfL's own strategy (see p9) shows that the area of poor cross river connectivity is east of City Airport and Woolwich. Despite this Boris cancelled the Thames Gateway Bridge project. A crossing between Beckton and Thamemead would be much more helpful in terms of providing actual economic regeneration. This is a toy for tourists and visitors (linking two venues, the O2 and Excel, which are mostly frequented by non-locals), not a serious travel option.
You only need to take a ride down the Thames Path through Thamesmead to realise how an area which is so relatively central is so economically stagnant. And ok the Thames Crossing would have been expensive (c.£500m) and encouraged car use, but another project Boris has put the kibosh on is a pedestrian/cycle bridge between Canary Wharf and Rotherhithe at an estimated cost of £65m - that's £5m more than the cable cars and far more useful. The current option for crossing the river at this point is the Hilton Ferry - presumably so called because it costs £6 for a single - plus it only operates during the day and early evening.
The reality is of course that due to his 'doughnut' vote strategy (ignoring the inner city and wooing the outer suburbs), Boris doesn't give a crap about disadvantaged East Londoners, so why should they expect him to help them?
Add the cable cars to the list of expensive and impractical Boris vanity projects - just like the new £1.42m routemaster of which we now have a whole EIGHT on the 38 route, at a cost of £11.37m.
Just what we should we have expected from a 'comedy' Mayor, I suppose...
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I wouldn't mind so much if it was actually useful, but TfL's own strategy (see p9) shows that the area of poor cross river connectivity is east of City Airport and Woolwich. Despite this Boris cancelled the Thames Gateway Bridge project. A crossing between Beckton and Thamesmead would be much more helpful in terms of providing actual economic regeneration.
Scrapping the TGB was one of the few good things he did. That would have been a hugely destructive motorway bridge. (I see that you note motor traffic generation further down.) There is certainly a need for more river crossings, but they should be small-scale and public transport/walking/cycling only. They're trying it on again with a road tunnel this time, let's see how far that one gets.
This is a toy for tourists and visitors (linking two venues, the O2 and Excel, which are mostly frequented by non-locals), not a serious travel option.
This is probably true, but in London this sort of facility will survive and will probably become a bit of an attraction.
You only need to take a ride down the Thames Path through Thamesmead to realise how an area which is so relatively central is so economically stagnant.
Thamesmead is anything but 'central', or 'relatively central'. The main reason why it's economically stagnant is the attempt to implement the 'ville radieuse' concept. Result: Traffic passes it by (and would continue to do so forever no matter how many river crossings you built) towards ridiculously over-centralised Central London (and other surrounding centres). It's never worked, needs to be knocked down altogether, and replaced with a properly-planned destination. It is of course always best for centres to grow organically, but that's precluded by much of the built form and uneven land use patterns in a design like Thamesmead, and with traffic being so separated from it, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. It's a disastrous failed experiment which can't be saved or tinkered with. You have to start again there.
And ok the Thames Crossing would have been expensive (c.£500m) and encouraged car use, but another project Boris has put the kibosh on is a pedestrian/cycle bridge between Canary Wharf and Rotherhithe at an estimated cost of £65m - that's £5m more than the cable cars and far more useful.
Yes, that's the Sustrans bridge I was talking about, but the project had essentially run out of time even before the current Mayor took office. (It would have had a chance as an Olympic project, but the window for that passed.)
It's still a feasible idea, as a crossing at that point really is needed, but it'll take a while to come back.
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I wish I could believe that, Neil, but unfortunately it's not the reality. A new river crossing for motor traffic would be up to over capacity in no time, having generated more motor traffic. The research on that is 100% consistent, no room for doubt whatsoever. The idea that you can build your way out of motor traffic congestion is a pernicious fiction. I'm quite clear that we need more river crossings, but building them for general motor traffic would be counter-productive.
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Yes.
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No, of course not like that. :)
There are millions of papers on the topic. Here's one I picked off search results at random:
http://www.vtpi.org/gentraf.pdf
In Central/Inner London, it is guaranteed that relatively isolated alignments (without (m)any parallel routes) will fill up immediately.
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If you build it, they will come. You can do all of the demand modelling and research you like but that's the reality.
I must take issue with a few of your points Oliver, although I broadly agree!
Thamesmead is relatively central. It's 9.4 miles east of Charing Cross. That supports everything else you said about it though.
And the cable cars will no doubt become an attraction - the London Eye is an attraction, but it doesn't help me get to work.And if Boris wanted to build the 'Sustrans' bridge he could have done. He could have made that happen instead of the ridiculous cable cars. He just didn't want to.
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About
Cable car across the Thames
Posted by
@skydancer
which was closed a few weeks back, so at night I had the option of...
trying to persuade station master to let me under the thames from the dome, huge no (you'd think I was trying to steal his daughter, he got angry very quickly).
ride back and do the rotherhithe, too far to go back and thru and north and then east again.
ride the blackwall @ 3am. this one
was actually not too bad on the old asphyxiation and no angry plod or drivers either.
there defo needs to be another pedestrian/ bike crossing in the east, from the dome peninsular wouldn't be bad, but a little more east in line with silvertown would probably be better.