Richard J. wrote:
Brimstone wrote:
Mrs Redboots wrote:
Richard J. wrote to uk.transport.london on Fri, 25 Mar 2005:


But IIRC the tidal rise and fall in Sydney is quite small. In
London it can be more than 7 metres.

Given that for centuries the river provided almost the *only*
public transport available in London, I rather suspect that this
is a problem which has been overcome in the past, and can be again.

Is it even a problem since boats are loading and unloading now?

Yes, but carrying relatively few passengers. This discussion is about
using the river for mass transit - many thousands of passengers per
hour. In comparison with trains, boats have very long dwell times,
partly because berthing at a pier takes longer than arriving at a
platform, and partly because it takes longer to embark/disembark.

Surely that depends on the design of the vessel and of the pier?

So to get the capacity you'd have to provide many more pier berths than
at present, equivalent to having, say, 8 platforms at every tube stop.
Having 7-metre tides and strong currents means that berthing will be
even slower and it's more difficult to design such a pier for large
numbers of people.

I accept that a different design would be needed for commuter (compared to
the current leisure) levels of traffic but why would they be more difficult
to design? The basics will be the same, i.e. to give the boat something
fairly firm to come alongside that rises and falls with the water level and
keeps the travellers feet out of the oggin with a bridge of some description
to dry land.