Lower Thames Crossing approved by government.

[nuttinnew]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crewy5472gxo

[integrale_evo]

Unlikely to ever use it, but if it takes some traffic away from the dartford crossing it’ll be a good thing.

£9billion though, isn’t Elon building one from London to New York for $21B?

[Gavster]

Great news, also the Silvertown tunnel opens soon, which should make a big difference around this part of town

[Mito Man]

Unlikely to ever use it, but if it takes some traffic away from the dartford crossing it’ll be a good thing.

£9billion though, isn’t Elon building one from London to New York for $21B?

It’ll cost 9 billion just to move the moles out the way and rehome them.

[Simon]

Don't forget the £3bn newt cave and the £7.2bn in legal fees and planning permission costs.

[Marv]

Then once opened they'll be a toll to cover the cost of building it.

And after many years have passed and the cost has been covered, the government will hand it over to a private company who will keep hiking up the price to cross.

[Mito Man]

In normal circumstances they'd also toll the alternative roads around it, but in this case they're already toll roads.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I thought we were skint?

[Gavster]

Creating a meaningful crossing at the Thames there has potential to create significant growth in the desolate ex-industrial wastelands of Kent and Essex either side of the river there. As well as relieving the massive pinch point which is the sheer lack of river crossings to the east of Tower Bridge

[Jobbo]

One of the reasons for the lack of river crossings east of Tower Bridge is that they need to allow full size ships to pass, so they need to be very high or in tunnels. Funnily enough Youtube offered me up a video last weekend which I enjoyed, and which bemoans the failure to build a footbridge from Surrey Quays/Rotherhithe area to Canary Wharf (below).

Is there a real need for a crossing between Gravesend and Tilbury? It's not on the M25 so would require a large diversion to be useful, and the Dartford bridge and tunnels presumably flow quite well these days now the toll is only ANPR; I never found the queues that bad at the old toll booths the times I've used it. The new crossing strikes me as a logical thing when you consider the closest alternatives to Dartford for vehicles are the Woolwich ferry (love it, only ever crossed once though and had to queue a while even on a quiet Sunday afternoon) and Blackwall Tunnel. But not being on a main route either side totally destroys the case for the new crossing, unless there is an intention to spend billions more upgrading the roads to it. Why not spend more on infrastructure within London like the proposed footbridge?



ETA: I realise the intention is to make it easier for traffic to and from the channel crossings to head north round the M25 more easily, but it's the M20 not the M2 which goes to the Channel Tunnel and that narrow, twisty bit of dual carriageway linking the M20 and M2 isn't at all suitable for greater volumes of traffic.

Further ETA: now I've looked on the SABRE forums, the thread on a new lower Thames crossing started in 2013, so this is just the final decision on which route to use. The original consultation included an upgrade to the A229 dual carriageway I mentioned above which isn't in the announcement. Always the case: choose the best option then don't fully implement it - that means it'll never achieve the intended effect.

[jamcg]

Always the case: choose the best option then don't fully implement it - that means it'll never achieve the intended effect.

Non no. It’s half arsed implement it, complain it doesn’t work, wait 5 years, spend millions and a couple more years doing what you said you would do in the first place to make it work, use this as a justification to hike tolls more, then complain when people don’t use it

[integrale_evo]

The worst pinch points at busy times are the junctions immediately before the crossing. The actual booth part is pretty free flowing, it’s all the traffic trying to sort itself out before which causes everything to back up.

Taking a decent amount of local south Essex traffic off the m25 should help.

But then by 2032, which will probably be even later by the time it’s open, traffic levels will probably be far higher so you just end up with two full crossings.

[Gavster]

One of the reasons for the lack of river crossings east of Tower Bridge is that they need to allow full size ships to pass, so they need to be very high or in tunnels. Funnily enough Youtube offered me up a video last weekend which I enjoyed, and which bemoans the failure to build a footbridge from Surrey Quays/Rotherhithe area to Canary Wharf (below).

Is there a real need for a crossing between Gravesend and Tilbury? It's not on the M25 so would require a large diversion to be useful, and the Dartford bridge and tunnels presumably flow quite well these days now the toll is only ANPR; I never found the queues that bad at the old toll booths the times I've used it. The new crossing strikes me as a logical thing when you consider the closest alternatives to Dartford for vehicles are the Woolwich ferry (love it, only ever crossed once though and had to queue a while even on a quiet Sunday afternoon) and Blackwall Tunnel. But not being on a main route either side totally destroys the case for the new crossing, unless there is an intention to spend billions more upgrading the roads to it. Why not spend more on infrastructure within London like the proposed footbridge?



ETA: I realise the intention is to make it easier for traffic to and from the channel crossings to head north round the M25 more easily, but it's the M20 not the M2 which goes to the Channel Tunnel and that narrow, twisty bit of dual carriageway linking the M20 and M2 isn't at all suitable for greater volumes of traffic.

Further ETA: now I've looked on the SABRE forums, the thread on a new lower Thames crossing started in 2013, so this is just the final decision on which route to use. The original consultation included an upgrade to the A229 dual carriageway I mentioned above which isn't in the announcement. Always the case: choose the best option then don't fully implement it - that means it'll never achieve the intended effect.

I don't understand why people get so down on major infrastructure projects, they're literally the crowning investment of any growing society. As a country we're hideously pedestrian in creating them them in the first place and it shows. Then armchair critics watch a couple of YouTube videos and decide that the 10+ years of development and decisionmaking involved in getting to this point was all wrong. These things are never going to be perfect in such a crowded country, but the issues which are created by not building, or very very slow development are far worse.

Besides, the three latest multi-billion projects which impact me are all awesome and much needed (all tunnels for some reason): Elizabeth Line, Tideway Tunnel, Silvertown Tunnel.

[duncs500]

I very nearly got a nicely paid freelance gig looking after the marine GI for this before covid ruined it for me.

Major infrastructure projects will never be a bad thing (until I retire at least)!

[V8Granite]

Always the case: choose the best option then don't fully implement it - that means it'll never achieve the intended effect.

Non no. It’s half arsed implement it, complain it doesn’t work, wait 5 years, spend millions and a couple more years doing what you said you would do in the first place to make it work, use this as a justification to hike tolls more, then complain when people don’t use it

It’s ok, never in the history of the world have consultants needlessly extended projects because they have a good day rate

Dave!

[V8Granite]

One of the reasons for the lack of river crossings east of Tower Bridge is that they need to allow full size ships to pass, so they need to be very high or in tunnels. Funnily enough Youtube offered me up a video last weekend which I enjoyed, and which bemoans the failure to build a footbridge from Surrey Quays/Rotherhithe area to Canary Wharf (below).

Is there a real need for a crossing between Gravesend and Tilbury? It's not on the M25 so would require a large diversion to be useful, and the Dartford bridge and tunnels presumably flow quite well these days now the toll is only ANPR; I never found the queues that bad at the old toll booths the times I've used it. The new crossing strikes me as a logical thing when you consider the closest alternatives to Dartford for vehicles are the Woolwich ferry (love it, only ever crossed once though and had to queue a while even on a quiet Sunday afternoon) and Blackwall Tunnel. But not being on a main route either side totally destroys the case for the new crossing, unless there is an intention to spend billions more upgrading the roads to it. Why not spend more on infrastructure within London like the proposed footbridge?



ETA: I realise the intention is to make it easier for traffic to and from the channel crossings to head north round the M25 more easily, but it's the M20 not the M2 which goes to the Channel Tunnel and that narrow, twisty bit of dual carriageway linking the M20 and M2 isn't at all suitable for greater volumes of traffic.

Further ETA: now I've looked on the SABRE forums, the thread on a new lower Thames crossing started in 2013, so this is just the final decision on which route to use. The original consultation included an upgrade to the A229 dual carriageway I mentioned above which isn't in the announcement. Always the case: choose the best option then don't fully implement it - that means it'll never achieve the intended effect.

I don't understand why people get so down on major infrastructure projects, they're literally the crowning investment of any growing society. As a country we're hideously pedestrian in creating them them in the first place and it shows. Then armchair critics watch a couple of YouTube videos and decide that the 10+ years of development and decisionmaking involved in getting to this point was all wrong. These things are never going to be perfect in such a crowded country, but the issues which are created by not building, or very very slow development are far worse.

Besides, the three latest multi-billion projects which impact me are all awesome and much needed (all tunnels for some reason): Elizabeth Line, Tideway Tunnel, Silvertown Tunnel.

Not a downer at all, it’s the reality of them I find embarrassingly bad.

For example, my builder friend earnt a horrific amount of money when they did the London Olympic building work for fitting hand dryers. He was paid per dryer, he fitted 2 dryers and earnt more than a full day as a builder. He would fit around 10.

That is a disgusting amount of waste by people spending other peoples money.

Big projects are awesome to watch, channel tunnel being one I remember watching as a kid but when you have more consultants and office folk than workers, it’s just a cash grab by people. It’s been the same in every big projects are I’ve been involved in. The last one being the power station at Alderley Edge, £30,000 for a bit of £2000 scaffolding

I know times have changed and safety, environmental
Issues create much more cost but the fraud is pretty obvious and ignored.

Dave!

[V8Granite]

I’ll ask a Hackney cab driving friend about this as I’m curious. I know when Treina was going to Devonshire square that any crossing being down made her drive in a nightmare.

I actually enjoy driving around London so it sounds good in theory.

Dave!

[Gavster]

This is my point though, it's ridiculously difficult to implement massive projects to perfect standards in such a busy, expensive and crowded island and there will always be inefficiencies as a result.

The 2012 Olympic will prove to be a huge net gain for the country. We won loads of medals, and also regenerated a toxic wasteland in East London (which was home to the largest pile of dumped fridges in Europe) into one of the most sophisticated neighbourhoods in the city that is continuing to grow into a national hub for education, the arts, sport and innovation.

Someone getting overpaid to install hand dryers, or paying too many consultants is not a decent reason to deprive us of all those benefits.

If you're building bridges in rural China, then it's a different story, it's easy. Try doing anything in London and you're basically fucked, then you find some Roman remains as you start digging and the whole thing gets put on hold.

[Jobbo]

I don't understand why people get so down on major infrastructure projects, they're literally the crowning investment of any growing society. As a country we're hideously pedestrian in creating them them in the first place and it shows. Then armchair critics watch a couple of YouTube videos and decide that the 10+ years of development and decisionmaking involved in getting to this point was all wrong. These things are never going to be perfect in such a crowded country, but the issues which are created by not building, or very very slow development are far worse.

Besides, the three latest multi-billion projects which impact me are all awesome and much needed (all tunnels for some reason): Elizabeth Line, Tideway Tunnel, Silvertown Tunnel.

No downer from me - I was entirely pro-HS2, and am in favour of the A303 tunnel to bypass Stonehenge, and would have preferred a tunnel to the approved plan for the Air Balloon A417 improvements.

What I am not sure about here is why the other (simpler) promised infrastructure improvements such as the footbridge I mentioned are not implemented, while this is approved in an incomplete way.

As a country we are paralysed by process so it is amazing that anything does end up getting built; where the timescale is so long that inflation alone adds massively to the costs there's clearly something wrong.

[Gavster]

I’ll ask a Hackney cab driving friend about this as I’m curious. I know when Treina was going to Devonshire square that any crossing being down made her drive in a nightmare.

I actually enjoy driving around London so it sounds good in theory.

Dave!

See what they think about the Silvertown tunnel too, although this won't have much impact on people who operate mainly in zones 1 and 2.

In the east the main problem is that any kind of issue in the Blackwall tunnel (broken down car, crash, stoppage etc) then it absolutely gridlocks the whole area, plus goods vehicles aren't allowed through Rotherhithe tunnel, so in a van you suddenly you have to divert to either Tower Bridge or Dartford to get across the river, which is a complete PITA and usually turns a 30 in journey into a 90+ minute one