More Silvertown Tunnel buses would be ‘moving fresh air around’, councillors told
- Safer Highways
- Feb 13
- 5 min read
Running more buses through the Silvertown Tunnel would simply be “moving fresh air around”, a TfL representative has told Greenwich councillors after being questioned on why so few routes will use the new link.
Chris Lynch, a TfL planner, said that if councils such as Greenwich wanted new routes they should be getting money from developers to fund them.
Just two new buses will use the Silvertown Tunnel after it opens on Monday April 7: an extension of the 129 from North Greenwich to London City Airport and Beckton, and the express SL4 from Grove Park to Canary Wharf. Only the 129 will stop on the Greenwich Peninsula.
Pedestrians and cyclists will be banned from the new tunnel, which has a dedicated lane for HGVs and buses. Car drivers will be charged up to £4 to use both crossings.
Labour councillor David Gardner said building the crossing, between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, “ignored” a target set by Sir Sadiq Khan’s to reduce car use on London’s roads by 27 per cent by 2030.
Gardner said areas on both sides of the Thames were already “overwhelmed” with plans for distribution warehouses because the new tunnel would include what he called an “HGV lane” and a lack of tolls between 10pm and 6am.
Khan has been a fervent advocate for the tunnel since he became London’s Labour mayor in 2016, believing it will “virtually eliminate” the notorious queues at the Blackwall Tunnel, and has painted the crossing as being focused on public transport.
The tunnel was approved with a development consent order (DCO), which sets conditions around tolling and numbers of buses using the tunnel, in 2018. But critics fear the crossing will lead to more traffic in areas around the two tunnels.
Labour councillors on Greenwich’s transport scrutiny panel criticised the tunnel and quizzed Lynch, a TfL transport planning manager, last Thursday on what would happen if it caused problems.
Three years ago Khan unveiled his Pathways to Net Zero report, which included a 27 per cent reduction in car vehicle use per kilometre by 2030. However, the report said this would only be possible if a road user charging system was in use on London’s roads, a policy the mayor rowed back onduring last year’s election.
Gardner said: “The whole premise was that we have to meet the mayor’s target of reducing traffic by 27 per cent across London and the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels together have to be part of that equation because they drive a lot of traffic into London, and out of London.
“And yet that has been totally ignored. The whole premise was that traffic wouldn’t increase, although it does increase by 20 to 30 per cent southbound in the peak.”
The original traffic modelling for the crossing included 37.5 buses using both Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels each hour at peak times, with suggestions there would be additional routes to Mile End and Eltham, but TfL cut this to 20 during the public hearings in 2017.
He added: “Obviously 20 buses an hour is not the 36 or so that was promised in the [original] consultation. It was the minimum required in the DCO. And obviously we have a large number already with the 108 going through the Blackwall tunnel. But with 20 buses an hour going each way, there’ll be far more HGVs than that.
“It is effectively an HGV lane with a few buses tagged on. Already we are overwhelmed with applications, as are Newham, for more logistics hubs and so forth, which are going to drive in more traffic.”
Lynch said the toll on the tunnel meant there would be “no overall increase in traffic”, according to TfL forecasts.
“The user charge is set at a level which means won’t be an increase in traffic, but by providing the public transport bus lane through the tunnel, what we’re actually doing is ensuring that you’ve got an opportunity for the growth on Greenwich Peninsula,” he said.
“So the 15,000 homes and 17,000 jobs [on the peninsula], double that over in the Royal Docks, for the growth in those two places to come forward sustainably with a public transport link via the bus network. So that people who are living in those areas are less reliant on their cars and living in areas where they’ve got better connections across the river by public transport.”
But Lynch said TfL’s modelling showed that extra routes would not be well-used at first.
“After Covid we did quite extensive public transport modelling of the bus network and where the routes should go and what the most optimal frequency was for the buses.
“It showed that you got a very small amount of additional benefits if you put 37 buses per hour in compared with 20 buses per hour. You’d be moving quite a lot of fresh air around. It’s a combination of maximising your benefits, but also ensuring you’re delivering public value for money.”
He added: “The development’s coming forward and the link is there now and is there to be used, it’s for local authorities to put pressure on developers to pay some Section 106 money to expand the bus network throughout Greenwich and into Newham.”
Councillors also raised concerns about the lack of specific monitoring of PM2.5 pollution – fine particles that come from tyres and brake pads – because this was not included in the DCO. Lynch said that this would be covered in London-wide monitoring rather than specifically for the new tunnel.
Questioned by East Greenwich Labour councillor Maisie Richards Cottell on what TfL would do if its forecasts for traffic and pollution were wrong, Lynch said: “The transport models that we use are based on government guidelines. TfL uses those models, not just for saying how many cars we think Silvertown [Tunnel] is going to take when it opens, but to make investment decisions or policy decisions.
“At the same time, it is just a forecast, which is why we have a monitoring programme in place and a way to engage locally through [local boroughs] to understand that better.
“And if we need to do mitigation because something isn’t quite as expected, then we’ll investigate and look into it. But I don’t foresee that we need to do that at the moment.”
Calum O’Byrne Mulligan, a Creekside Labour councillor, mocked the plans for a free bus to take cyclists through the tunnel, saying that the money could be spent on helping fix problems at the Greenwich and Woolwich foot tunnels.
“Ditch the bike bus and help us make those those active travel crossings that we’ve already got more reliable,” he said. “That would probably be a more welcome use of some of those funds.”
Aidan Smith, who represents Greenwich Park ward, suggested using the original Blackwall Tunnel, which was built in 1897, for pedestrians and cyclists instead.
Lynch said he would “probably say no”.
“Based on the modelling that we’ve done, the forecasts are that we get a similar level of traffic passing through the Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels, but we don’t have that up-to 20 minutes queue on the approach.
“Taking out a single bore of the Blackwall Tunnel then perhaps takes you back to the position we have today.”
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