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So now @LondonLabour are claiming that @SadiqKhan's £2.2bn Silvertown road-building mega-project will 'reduce traffic'. Here's what it *actually* does, courtesy @tfl. (Quote from here: https://www.swlondoner.co.uk/news/09042021-hammersmith-bridge-inaction-could-stem-from-toxic-relations-lib-dem-mayoral-candidate/ )
@Len_Duvall @NavinShah2016 @GwynTopham @chris_annous @Jess_Shankleman
@Len_Duvall @NavinShah2016 @GwynTopham @chris_annous @Jess_Shankleman
What's happening here? Well, TfL are intending to build massive new road capacity under the river, at eye-watering expense - but not to improve any of the approach roads - which are shared with Blackwall to the south.
So as soon as more traffic crosses the river, using the new cross-river capacity, the approach roads & surrounding areas jam up, as we see here.
TfL's answer is to put a toll on both crossings. So now they're building massively expensive road capacity under the river, and then charging people to make sure they don't actually use any of that new capacity.
And that toll is under the control of the Mayor at the time. So, either, the toll works, and the £2,2bn spent building that new road capacity is pretty much wasted, because no more people can cross the river..
Or, the Mayor doesn't increase the toll fast enough, or ditches it entirely, (as Johnson did with the Western Congestion Charge), and we're back to the situation above, where the approach roads jam and £2.2bn has been spent to make traffic, congestion, and pollution worse.
(Even if you believe London needs new road crossings in the East.)
The correlate, of course, is TfL would get much better traffic, congestion and pollution outcomes if they just put a toll on Blackwall, without first making things worse by spending £2.2bn on a massive new road. And they'd save £2.2bn. But they never modeled that option.
And, in fact, they've repeatedly refused to do the work to compare the traffic, economic, and environmental outcomes of just putting a toll on the Blackwall Tunnel to remove congestion, with building a £2.2bn new road & then imposing a toll on both tunnels to remove congestion.
If they'd done so, they might've been forced to admit the obvious - that it's the road pricing that reduces traffic and congestion - and that, like any other big urban road, their £2.2bn road-building scheme induces more traffic, and makes congestion and pollution worse.
