Aidan Stanger wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:


Matt Ashby wrote:

I took a Thames Clippers boat from Canary Wharf to St.
Katherine's pier on Friday, and it was a really enjoyable
experience and a reasonably quick way across the city.
The journey time from Embankment to Canary Wharf is 21
minutes -- 4 minutes longer than the tube. To Greenwich,
the boat takes about the same time as National Rail, and
is quicker than the DLR.

So my question is, would it be possible to integrate the
river services into the rest of the TfL system? This would
include increasing capacity and frequency to mass transit
levels, and either buying out the existing providers (as
was done with the tube) or taking control of scheduling
and pricing while contracting out the service provision to
private operators (as is the case with London Buses).

And if it was possible, would it make economic sense?

Although it's a nice idea, TfL have already looked at this and concluded
that it would require far too much subsidy to run - it would need the
biggest subsidy per passenger of any mode of transport in London. I
haven't got any figures but I'm sure the Mayor answered a question like
this in one of the weekly Mayor's Question Times (the questions and
answers to which are on www.london.gov.uk somewhere).


Yet they're eager to spend far more on infrastructure projects like the
£40m bus lane on the Thames Gateway Bridge, and the Canary Wharf branch
of Crossrail, which would cost far more than subsidies for boats ever
would. The cost of running boats is on the high side, but so are the
benefits: they can quickly provide plenty of capacity, link communities
N and S of the river, and serve remote parts of London which do not have
bus services (parts of Thamesmead are more than 500m from buses, and
some riverside industrial estates are much further).

Can you get from Heathrow to Canary Wharf by boat? Or from most parts of
West London, Paddington, the West End etc? It's not really relevant to
compare boat subsidies to the cost of Crossrail - or even the Thames
Gateway Bridge for that matter (where did you get the £40m figure
from?). Boats won't take you from Thamesmead to Romford, or Abbey Wood
to Barking.

Boats can be useful but the river serves a limited catchment area;
interchange is also difficult between river and other modes except at a
few choice locations (although I accept that that can be remedied).

The problem with the river is that any pier will by its nature only have
half the catchment area of an inland rail/Tube station.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London