"Tom Barry" wrote in message
...
Paul Scott wrote:
"Tony Polson" wrote in message
What? Don't they know who you are?


Looking at the suggested bridge style, and the location, presumably there
will be a resulting saving from never opening Tower Bridge again?

:-)

Paul S

So, to summarise: Boris is reanimating someone's pet project from the
1990s, but since the Millennium Bridge is now providing a link in the area
it was originally planned, it needs to be downstream of Tower Bridge,
which means it either has to lift or be high enough for shipping to pass
underneath, be longer because the river is wider there and you can do this
for £80m and fund it by incorporating sufficient property in the design to
cover the costs by sale?

snip

From the artist's impression, it looks as though it is supposed to swing.
Could be fun! At least it will be higher than the flood plain, unlike most
planned development in the area.

MaxB

In article ,
(John Rowland) wrote:

wrote:
In article ,
(Paul Scott) wrote:

Looking at the suggested bridge style, and the location, presumably
there will be a resulting saving from never opening Tower Bridge
again?

How often does it open these days, anyway?

A few times a day.
http://www.towerbridge.org.uk/TBE/EN/BridgeLiftTimes/

You live and learn!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Wed, 6 May 2009, Batman55 wrote:

"Tom Barry" wrote in message
...
Paul Scott wrote:
"Tony Polson" wrote in message
What? Don't they know who you are?

Looking at the suggested bridge style, and the location,

Where exactly is the location? The article Tim posted says "between
Greenwich and Silvertown", which is a bit baffling because Greenwich and
Silvertown are on opposite sides of the Greenwich Peninsula, and a bridge
linking them would be a monstrous and quixotic construction. Presumably,
unless he's just confused, Boris either meant the London Borough of
Greenwich, or was thinking of Woolwich, which sounds a bit similar and is
what's opposite Silvertown. Although the map in the article:

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/20...ph-890x363.jpg

Puts the bridge a few hundred metres east of Waterloo Bridge, linking
Somerset House and the National Theatre. That makes more sense from a
flats and Topiary Cafe point of view, although less from a transport
angle.

Perhaps the right solution is just to build a deck on top of an existing
railway bridge - they have well-defined height needs, and so can safely be
built on, and wouldn't really suffer from having things on top, since
trains don't have sunroofs. Blackfriars bridge would be the obvious one,
linking the south bank and the edge of the City. Waterloo bridge is even
better located, but already has those footbridges. Cannon Street bridge is
the widest (although perhaps not wider then Blackfriars after it's
widened), which would be good, is really well located for posh flats near
the City, and you've at least got Borough at the south end.

Sod it, why not do all three?

presumably there will be a resulting saving from never opening Tower
Bridge again?

So, to summarise: Boris is reanimating someone's pet project from the
1990s, but since the Millennium Bridge is now providing a link in the
area it was originally planned, it needs to be downstream of Tower
Bridge, which means it either has to lift or be high enough for
shipping to pass underneath, be longer because the river is wider there
and you can do this for ?80m and fund it by incorporating sufficient
property in the design to cover the costs by sale?

From the artist's impression, it looks as though it is supposed to
swing. Could be fun!

In the museumy bit at Tower Bridge, there's a drawing of one of the rival
proposals for a bridge at the Tower, which was a non-lifting bridge with a
loop in it, like a big roundabout where the island is empty, and where
each arm of the loop could be swung out. The idea was that you'd open one,
sail a ship into the 'island', close it, open the other, and sail the ship
out the other side. A bit like a lock. This would allow traffic to flow
across the bridge continuously even as ships passed through. I think there
were two loops, actually.

Hang on, i'll do an ascii art (the tilde is the boat):

| | | | |
| |_ | _| |
( ) ~ (~ (~) ~) ~ ( )
| | | | |
| | | | |

Anyway, you could add a mechanism like that to the Boris Bridge, which
would mean it didn't have to me sky-high or entirely mobile. Both Tower
Bridge and the Thames Barrier have 200 foot wide apertures, so you'd want
the Boris Bridge to be the same, really.

Or you could use one of those big rolly-up things powered by attractive
ladies.

tom

--
Nullius in verba

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
rth.li...
On Wed, 6 May 2009, Batman55 wrote:

"Tom Barry" wrote in message
...
Paul Scott wrote:
"Tony Polson" wrote in message
What? Don't they know who you are?

Looking at the suggested bridge style, and the location,

Where exactly is the location? The article Tim posted says "between
Greenwich and Silvertown", which is a bit baffling because Greenwich and
Silvertown are on opposite sides of the Greenwich Peninsula, and a bridge
linking them would be a monstrous and quixotic construction. Presumably,
unless he's just confused, Boris either meant the London Borough of
Greenwich, or was thinking of Woolwich, which sounds a bit similar and is
what's opposite Silvertown. Although the map in the article:

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/20...ph-890x363.jpg

Puts the bridge a few hundred metres east of Waterloo Bridge, linking
Somerset House and the National Theatre. That makes more sense from a
flats and Topiary Cafe point of view, although less from a transport
angle.

Perhaps the right solution is just to build a deck on top of an existing
railway bridge - they have well-defined height needs, and so can safely be
built on, and wouldn't really suffer from having things on top, since
trains don't have sunroofs. Blackfriars bridge would be the obvious one,
linking the south bank and the edge of the City. Waterloo bridge is even
better located, but already has those footbridges. Cannon Street bridge is
the widest (although perhaps not wider then Blackfriars after it's
widened), which would be good, is really well located for posh flats near
the City, and you've at least got Borough at the south end.

Sod it, why not do all three?

snip

I believe most of the rail bridges show an unfortunate tendency to sink into
the clay, hence the removal of some tracks and sidings over the years.
Dumping more buildings on top might not be ideal!

MaxB

Tom Anderson wrote:


Where exactly is the location? The article Tim posted says "between
Greenwich and Silvertown", which is a bit baffling because Greenwich and
Silvertown are on opposite sides of the Greenwich Peninsula, and a
bridge linking them would be a monstrous and quixotic construction.
Presumably, unless he's just confused, Boris either meant the London
Borough of Greenwich, or was thinking of Woolwich, which sounds a bit
similar and is what's opposite Silvertown. Although the map in the article:

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/20...ph-890x363.jpg

Puts the bridge a few hundred metres east of Waterloo Bridge, linking
Somerset House and the National Theatre. That makes more sense from a
flats and Topiary Cafe point of view, although less from a transport angle.


I interpreted that as the Standard digging up the original 1990s plans
which were indeed in that area, which was considered at the time to have
poor cross-river provision for pedestrians. This isn't so much of an
issue now with Hungerford Bridge and the Millennium Bridge being opened
since 2000, and providing a bridge there would be pretty pointless, really.

However, obviously downstream of Tower Bridge there's a historic
shortfall in river crossings, hence it would have to be there. I've no
idea where the Silvertown crossing idea has come from, but the last
ideologically-pure Tory crossing project was the third bore on the
Blackwall Tunnel, which was in that area, so it may be part of the
standard cargo cult Conservatism where they try and breathe life into
the dead past in order to reanimate Mrs. T or bring back the Fifties or
something. In fact, Boris himself made this clear:

"I have asked Transport for London (TfL) to look again at alternative
options for a much needed new east London river crossing, including a
crossing at Silvertown that would be integrated with the Blackwall tunnel."

The current crossings round there are the Blackwall (road), Jubilee
(tube), Thames Barrier (jump, repeatedly) and Woolwich Ferry (er,
ferry). If I was a betting man I'd suggest they were looking at
something west of the Barrier and east of the Dome, but it's not obvious
what it would plug into on either side - there are rumours that there's
a protected alignment at John Harrison Way leading out of the Blackwall
approaches, but on the north side you'd only have the A1020 as an
output. The other thing I would say is that the river there is about
500m wide, twice as far as the canned £70m pedestrian/cycle bridge at
Rotherhithe, which makes the £80m estimate even more eye-opening.
Presumably a tunnel would be required it if was genuinely a road-relief
scheme, at which points all bets are off regarding costings.

Finally, there was a lot of fuss in early Boris days about the removal
of tidal flow in the Blackwall, which people blamed car-hating Ken for
(it was the Met being all elfansafety and threatening to withdraw from
policing the tunnel, actually, and with a certain amount of
justification). He's evidently realised he can't meet the demands of
south-east London's motorists (who voted for him in their thousands) in
that area, hence scrabbling around for something to placate them.

None of which has anything to do with any residential bridge. I've been
invited to Q&A with Boris on Saturday, actually. Might ask him (current
question idea: 'where do you get your transport policy ideas from and is
anyone with any actual experience or academic qualification involved?').

Tom

Tom Barry wrote:

None of which has anything to do with any residential bridge. I've
been invited to Q&A with Boris on Saturday, actually. Might ask him
(current question idea: 'where do you get your transport policy ideas
from and is anyone with any actual experience or academic
qualification involved?').

I sent two single sides of A4 to Boris at the beginning of February,
suggesting two quite different transport schemes, neither of which would
cost much and both of which might turn a profit within two years. Both were
Conservative in nature, and one would reduce sex attacks and robberies. At
the beginning of April I phoned up to see why I had received no reply. Both
letters had been received by the Mayor's team, and they had been forwarded
to TfL Buses and TfL Streets respectively. TfL Streets had received theirs
but hadn't bothered replying. TfL Buses had lost theirs, so I emailed them
the text. Another month has now passed, and I have still had no reply from
either letter. It looks to me like there are Boris-haters in TfL who are in
a position where they can put all ideas which might benefit Londoners in the
bin until Boris is gone. Londoners won't have a voice until Boris goes on a
sackfest and puts his supporters in the appropriate positions in TfL. Please
tell him that on Saturday.

Oh., and next time someone finds out that Boris is doing a Q&A, can they
please post details here *before* the registration closes!

John Rowland wrote:
Tom Barry wrote:
None of which has anything to do with any residential bridge. I've
been invited to Q&A with Boris on Saturday, actually. Might ask him
(current question idea: 'where do you get your transport policy ideas
from and is anyone with any actual experience or academic
qualification involved?').

I sent two single sides of A4 to Boris at the beginning of February,
suggesting two quite different transport schemes, neither of which would
cost much and both of which might turn a profit within two years. Both were
Conservative in nature, and one would reduce sex attacks and robberies. At
the beginning of April I phoned up to see why I had received no reply. Both
letters had been received by the Mayor's team, and they had been forwarded
to TfL Buses and TfL Streets respectively. TfL Streets had received theirs
but hadn't bothered replying. TfL Buses had lost theirs, so I emailed them
the text. Another month has now passed, and I have still had no reply from
either letter. It looks to me like there are Boris-haters in TfL who are in
a position where they can put all ideas which might benefit Londoners in the
bin until Boris is gone. Londoners won't have a voice until Boris goes on a
sackfest and puts his supporters in the appropriate positions in TfL. Please
tell him that on Saturday.

Oh., and next time someone finds out that Boris is doing a Q&A, can they
please post details here *before* the registration closes!



I was invited, actually. Yesterday. Something to do with co-writing a
blog on him for the last year.

What were your ideas, as it happens?

BTW, I think the chances of finding someone committed to publicly
subsidised public transport who is also a supporter of Boris and
sufficiently qualified to work in the biggest transport authority in the
country is on the far side of remote. There's no reason why Boris, if
he was genuinely interested in the detail, couldn't kick backsides if he
wanted to. He doesn't, though, leaving it to Daniel Moylan (now Deputy
Chairman of TfL) and Steve Norris. You might try them, but Moylan's
priorities are getting rid of the congestion charge, naked streets and
removing traffic lights.

Tom

John Rowland wrote:

I sent two single sides of A4 to Boris at the beginning of February,
snip
Another month has now passed, and I have still had no reply
from either letter.

Bizarrely, 7 minutes after I posted the above, I received an emailed reply
from London Buses to my letter! Much of it is about preventing crime and
looks cut and pasted. It doesn't even mention the other two problems which
my idea was supposed to address, and it doesn't attempt to suggest that my
idea is a bad one. Just the usual "Since we didn't invent it, it can't be a
good idea". Why are people who work in transport so stationary?

"John Rowland" wrote:
John Rowland wrote:

I sent two single sides of A4 to Boris at the beginning of February,
snip
Another month has now passed, and I have still had no reply
from either letter.

Bizarrely, 7 minutes after I posted the above, I received an emailed reply
from London Buses to my letter! Much of it is about preventing crime and
looks cut and pasted. It doesn't even mention the other two problems which
my idea was supposed to address, and it doesn't attempt to suggest that my
idea is a bad one. Just the usual "Since we didn't invent it, it can't be a
good idea". Why are people who work in transport so stationary?


Because taking a greater interest in your idea would involve them in a
lot of extra work?

On Thu, 7 May 2009, John Rowland wrote:

John Rowland wrote:

I sent two single sides of A4 to Boris at the beginning of February,
snip Another month has now passed, and I have still had no reply from
either letter.

Bizarrely, 7 minutes after I posted the above, I received an emailed
reply from London Buses to my letter! Much of it is about preventing
crime and looks cut and pasted. It doesn't even mention the other two
problems which my idea was supposed to address, and it doesn't attempt
to suggest that my idea is a bad one. Just the usual "Since we didn't
invent it, it can't be a good idea". Why are people who work in
transport so stationary?

Probably because your letters never got anywhere near anyone who was
actually in any kind of position to do anything about them.

tom

--
When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. --
H. G. Wells