New Cable Car River Crossing For London In 2012

January 7, 2012

London Sights

The Mayor of London’s new project, the cable car over the Thames, or the ‘Emirates Air Line‘ as it will be officially known, is well on its way, with construction of the first 200 feet high tower now completed. Transport for London indicate that it will be finished and ready to go by late Spring of this year.

The rumour is (and unfortunately I can’t find anything substantive on the TfL website or the Mayor’s site to corroborate this) that the cable car journey will be covered by the Oyster Card, so regular travellers won’t have to pay anything extra for it, although why you would use it for any other reason than the sheer novelty is a bit of a mystery. The cable car connects the Greenwich Peninsula with the ExCel Conference Centre, which to my mind doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but I guess it has to touch down somewhere…

I think it’s unfortunate that the Mayor didn’t choose to go down a far more boring but practical route which, while not very sexy, would have provided a lasting legacy of his leadership i.e. having another crack at the abandoned East London River Crossing (the remnants of which I photographed and featured on the blog a few years ago). It’s rather inconvenient that, in a city the size of London, there’s no way for vehicles to cross the river (barring the Woolwich Ferry) between Blackwall and Dartford, a distance of over 12 miles. That being said, no doubt I’ll pick a quiet time during the day to try the cable car soon after it opens, but I doubt that I’ll go back for a second go.

About The Londoneer

Pete Stean is (currently) a civil servant working for the British Government and a keen blogger, amateur photographer, singer and ham radio enthusiast in his spare time... Google+

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