Transport for London (TfL) and the Riverlinx Restricted design, building and working consortium, have confirmed that London’s Silvertown Tunnel is deliberate to open on April 7, 2025.
The tunnel, which will likely be tolled, is the primary new street crossing to be constructed both below or over the River Thames inside Higher London because the new London Bridge was opened in 1973, and the primary all-new route for street autos throughout the Higher London stretch of the Thames because the Rotherhithe Tunnel opened in 1908.
When the brand new tunnel opens fees will come into power each for it and for the close by, current Blackwall Tunnel. The costs will apply from 6am to 10pm day by day, with each tunnels being charged to forestall site visitors from merely diverting to an uncharged crossing.
The usual off-peak price will likely be £1.50 for autos registered with TfL Auto Pay. Throughout peak hours, fees will enhance: bikes can pay an extra £1, vehicles and small vans can pay £2.50 extra, massive vans can pay £4 further, and HGVs can pay £5 extra. These peak charges apply northbound from 6am to 10am and southbound from 4pm to 7pm on weekdays. Customers with out TfL Auto Pay will even pay these larger charges.
A number of teams will obtain reductions or exemptions. Low-income residents in twelve east and southeast London boroughs and the Metropolis of London can qualify for a 50% low cost in the event that they obtain sure advantages similar to Common Credit score, Earnings Assist, or Housing Profit. Small companies, sole merchants, and charities in Tower Hamlets, Newham, and Greenwich will obtain a £1 low cost on off-peak fees for no less than the primary 12 months.
Full exemptions apply to buses, coaches, and autos with 9 or extra seats. Taxis, blue badge holders, and wheelchair-accessible personal rent autos registered with TfL gained’t should pay. Zero-emission succesful personal rent autos licensed by TfL are additionally exempt, as are accredited breakdown autos. NHS workers and eligible sufferers can have their fees reimbursed.
To encourage public transport use, a number of cross-river bus routes serving Newham, Tower Hamlets, and Greenwich will likely be free for no less than a 12 months, together with particular DLR cross-river journeys. A brand new free “cycle-shuttle” bus service will function between Silvertown and North Greenwich from 6:30am to 9:30pm day by day, permitting cyclists to cross the river safely.
For enforcement, a single penalty cost of £180 will apply per day for non-payment, decreased to £90 if paid inside 14 days, no matter what number of unpaid crossings are made that day.
All new bus routes serving the tunnel, which will likely be free for no less than the primary 12 months, will even launch the day of opening. The introduction of those new buses, together with the Superloop 4 (SL4) between Canary Wharf and Grove Park, will enhance the hourly variety of buses capable of cross the river within the space from six to 21, that means extra Londoners will profit from utilizing the tunnel.
With building work on the Silvertown challenge now coming in direction of a detailed, and operational readiness testing underway forward of the tunnel opening, work is shifting to putting in the infrastructure which is able to help the brand new zero-emission bus routes that may serve the Silvertown Tunnel – together with the brand new cycle-shuttle service below the Thames.
“Following years of laborious work and shut collaboration between ourselves and Riverlinx Restricted. The tunnel is on monitor to open within the coming months and is a testomony to good and ground-breaking engineering,” says Stuart Harvey, chief capital officer at Transport for London “The brand new tunnel, together with the preliminary person fees, reductions and exemptions, will help progress within the native space and supply new public transport connections throughout the river. These measures will even assist handle site visitors demand in addition to the environmental impacts, and make sure the new tunnel delivers on its targets of decreasing site visitors congestion and offering resilience on the Blackwall Tunnel, whereas guaranteeing we help native residents on low earnings, small companies, sole merchants and native charities.”
TfL will even shortly start to put in the brand new shelters and cycle racks for the zero-emission cycle-shuttle service, which can have a bespoke design to help cyclists and distinguish them from the common bus community. The service will function each 12 minutes, seven days per week from 06:30 to 21:30. It’s going to have two stops, one on both sides of the river.
The service will even have a singular feel and appear to assist distinguish it from the common bus community. This branding will likely be used on the buses, the stops and shelters, and on the wayfinding indicators to lift consciousness of the brand new service. Maps exhibiting native cycle routes will even be on show at shelters to assist with journey planning and encourage additional journeys by cycle. Additional particulars of the branding will likely be revealed within the new 12 months.
“We’re excited to be requested to function the modern and vital Silvertown Tunnel cycle-shuttle service as a part of the improved cross river public transport providing, and we’re busy ensuring our specifically transformed zero emission buses will likely be prepared in time,” says Stagecoach London managing director Paul Lynch “We additionally hope to see the brand new tunnel ease site visitors circumstances for our different bus providers within the space.”
Work on Tidal Basin Roundabout, along with new strolling and biking routes across the roundabout and alongside Dock Highway has additionally lately been accomplished, with work on bettering Decrease Lea Crossing for all street customers at present underway and as a consequence of be full by the tip of spring 2025.
First introduced in 2012, the 1.4km Silvertown Tunnel will hyperlink Newham to the Greenwich Peninsula and, supported by the brand new person fees, will make journeys quicker and extra dependable, with common journey time financial savings anticipated to be as much as 20 minutes at peak occasions.
The tunnel can also be positioned within the Extremely Low Emission Zone and also will help financial progress and permit TfL to enhance the variety of buses capable of cross the river on this space from six to 21 buses an hour in every course throughout the busiest occasions – all of which will likely be zero emission on the tailpipe.
To assist handle site visitors ranges throughout the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels, repay prices for constructing the brand new Silvertown Tunnel, and canopy ongoing upkeep and operation prices at each tunnels, a person cost will likely be launched on April 7, 2025. With out introducing this person cost at each tunnels, there would probably be excessive ranges of site visitors and congestion within the space, which might result in detrimental air high quality impacts, in addition to longer journey occasions.
East London residents and companies at present face power site visitors congestion within the space across the Blackwall Tunnel. The Victorian-era tunnel suffers from frequent closures – greater than 700 occasions a 12 months – which end in massive tailbacks, poor air high quality and thousands and thousands of hours misplaced as a consequence of drivers being trapped in site visitors congestion.
All through the development of the brand new tunnel, which started in 2021, greater than 1,860,000 tonnes of fabric have been transported to and from the location by way of river reasonably than utilizing roads – serving to to take away round 110,000 lorry journeys from native roads across the building web site. The tunnel boring machine, Jill (named after Jill Viner – London’s first feminine bus driver), was additionally innovatively rotated inside the rotation chamber in Greenwich to then bore the second tunnel again in direction of Newham – a UK engineering first. As a challenge, the Silvertown Tunnel has additionally enabled greater than 120 apprenticeships throughout the provision chain, in addition to supported the hiring of greater than 90 individuals who had been beforehand unemployed and provided greater than 1,500 days in placements for the subsequent technology of engineers.