A shortlist of three locations has been published for a new bridge across the Thames being designed exclusively for cyclists and pedestrians.
Situated between Vauxhall and Chelsea road bridges, the new footbridge aims to improve connections across the Thames with the mass of new tower blocks going up around Nine Elms and Battersea.
The current design, which hasn’t been finalised, is for a couple of corkscrew spirals at either end leading up to the bridge across the river.
Cllr Ravi Govindia, Leader, Wandsworth Council says that “A bridge specifically designed to carry pedestrians and cyclists will be a first for central London,” seemingly having forgotten about the “wobbly” bridge at the Tate Modern.
Although there are three options being offered, the favoured location would be facing directly to the new US embassy, as analysis by TfL in 2013 found this location to be likely to be the best in terms of people using the bridge.
Funding for the bridge is also still to be raised, and although £26 million has been secured from the developers putting up all those towers in Nine Elms, the estimated cost for the bridge to be built is somewhere in the region of £240 million, leaving a sizeable shortfall to be filled.
Public exhibitions will be held on both sides of the River Thames in November, and if approved, then the council will announce a final location in 2019, with construction starting in 2022.
The exhibitions take place as follows:
Saturday 3rd November 2018, 10am to 3pm
Park Court Clubroom, Battersea Park Road, Doddington Estate, Wandsworth, SW11 4LD
Wednesday 7th November 2018, 3pm to 8pm
St George’s Patmore Church, 11 Patmore Street, Wandsworth, SW8 4JD
Tuesday 6th November 2018, 3pm to 8pm
Bolney Meadow Community Centre, 31 Bolney Street, Lambeth, SW8 1EZ
Friday 9th November 2018, 3pm to 8pm
110 Rochester Row, City of Westminster, SW1P 1JP
Saturday 10th November, 10am to 3pm
Westminster Boating Base, 136 Grosvenor Road, City of Westminster, SW1V 3JY
“seemingly having forgotten about the ‘wobbly’ bridge at the Tate Modern”—you can’t cycle over that bridge.
I don’t think anyone has told the cyclists.
You “can’t” cycle through the greenwich foot tunnel.
It’s good to have pedestrian footbridges that will cross over the River Thames. As most areas in London is already getting clogged up with so much traffic everyday. Even though the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is trying to tackle pollution and that’s why the congestion charge was first introduced that allows drivers to pay the congestion charge when entering certain parts of London that are already congested.
There were plans to build a garden bridge but that was postponed. Which it wouldn’t happen.
But I like the idea of this. New pedestrian and cycle bridges in London. If it’s to be approved by the Mayor of London, TfL and other local authorities.
One or two of us tried to ram in a dual cycle/pedestrian use bridge within the rules of the Millennium Bridge Competition, but it never happened. The idea was to keep pedestrians on an upper open deck, cyclists within contraflowing tube tunnels. These would be slid to about saddle height and then periodically strutted, but open. On two stanchions where slung low to waterline on moveable pontoons, a cycle maintenance hub and a cafe. It would have been a high function bridge although not perhaps a work sublime art. The shape of the bridge would have been a very stretched ‘S’ which combined with the double circle(8 onside) and the top flat pedestrian deck, would have achieved an engineered design. Think on it.
Seems to me there are plenty of river crossings around there already. It would be more useful to add new crossings downstream of Tower Bridge, or between Battersea and Wandsworth Bridges.
But it’s the developers of these luxury appartments that we need so much (not) that pay the cash, and having the US embassy there helps the case too I suppose. Still seems cash-driven rather than needs-driven though.
The major problem downstream of Tower Briidge is maintaining access for tall ships which means bridges either have to be very high like the QEII Bridge or be built like Tower Bridge with a central opening section which is the plan for a similar pedestrian/cycle bridge from Canary Wharf across the river.
As for the Bridge mentioned in this article their were complaints from posh lot on north side of river complaining about proposed crossing from Nine Elms and no doubt this will resurface!
Option 2, the one farthest downstream would enable the best views of Saint George’s Square and spinning round, the embassy of the USA. Neither one’s inhabitants would welcome such a platform I would argue. Privacy and security flim-flam will probably put paid to this site.
If the bridge turns out to be anywhere near as pretty and weightless as the suggestion shown then it will go some way to being a counterbalance to the great massed ranks of uninspiring lumpen skyscrapers on the Thames’s southern bank.
Hold on, hold on, final location to be announced 2019 and bridge built 2022. Westminster residents don’t want the bridge and no planning application yet submitted to Westminster city council for a decision. What is going on Nader the table ??
The spirals look great but the reality for a pedestrian is a lot of ‘unnecessary’ walking – fine for a nice Sunday afternoon walk in the summer but far from ideal for a daily commuter walk, especially in bad weather. I can see it working for cyclists but I suspect a cycle only bridge isn’t unfeasible!
What is needed is very many more bridges in East London. Between the M 25 at Staines there are 18 or more bridges before you get to Tower Bridge but only two road tunnels, a ferry (out of action at the moment) a couple of foot tunnels before you the Dartford Tunnel & Q E II Bridge carrying Canterbury Way A 282 which is not M 25 but joins the two ends of M 25. Then even more free Bridges down to the end of the Thames at Shoeburyness – Sheerness. I do not see why I have to pay extra to go from Kent to Essex or V.V.