I made use of Pudding Mill Lane DLR station for the first time on
Saturday - an interesting experience. Surprisingly, it's not DLR's
least-used station (that accolade goes to Beckton Park for reasons that
I haven't yet worked out), with a very respectable annual usage figure
of about 325,000 passengers.

I was attempting to get from Victoria Park to Pudding Mill Lane (without
a map, which made life difficult!). I got onto Fish Island easily
enough, and spent a while wandering around trying to get on to the
Greenway which wasn't obviously signposted from the East Cross Route
foot/cyclebridge.

Getting from the Greenway to Pudding Mill Lane was an even more
difficult experience - the Greenway drops you off on Marshgate Lane (on
top of a load of old tyres) by the Great Eastern railway bridge. You can
see Pudding Mill Lane from there easily, but it looks impossible to
cross the short distance between Marshgate Lane and Pudding Mill Lane -
you either need to walk all the way round via the top or bottom of
Pudding Mill Lane (which is easily worked out if you have a map) or make
an intrepid leap from wasteland by the Greenway onto the carriageway of
Pudding Mill Lane below (which I ended up doing).

I presume PML was built in anticipation of development in the area
(which is now obviously the Olympics and legacy plan). I wonder where
the current demand comes from - there is light industry in the immediate
surroundings but I wouldn't expect much demand from that - Hackney Wick
has a similar makeup but demand is much lower (about 68,000 annual
passengers). I wonder if it used as park-and-ride on weekdays, given its
proximity to the A11 and East Cross Route.


--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London