By Max Leonard, le cool London
Short of using the Thames Barrier as giant stepping stones, setting up a zip-line from the top-floor atrium of the Gherkin, or indeed a TFL water-ski link, it’s difficult to know how the powers-that-be could make crossing the river any more exciting, following the London Mayor’s decision to put plans for a potential cable car out for consultation.
The cable car would rise 50m above the Thames and link the Greenwich peninsula to the Royal Docks. Completed in time for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, it would, says Boris, be a major tourist attraction and a key way for pedestrians to get from the O2 to the disturbingly-capitalised ExCeL – both Olympic venues.
The more down-to-earth TFL, meanwhile, says that there could be a cable car every 30 seconds and that the scheme could carry 2,500 people an hour – the equivalent of 50 buses. It is unclear as yet whether there will be racks to put your skis in on the cars themselves, or chalets at either end serving vin chaud.
The scheme’s very existence is dependent on private finance – public money all being tied up with normal transport schemes such as Crossrail, or being given to bankers – but if it were to go ahead it would cement London’s east as the jazzier destination for river crossing. It certainly positions London’s east as the jazzier destination for river crossing. After all, what happens in the west? Twickenham. Yawn. Kew Bridge – forget it. And dinky little Albert Bridge is potentially closed to traffic until 2012.
East of Waterloo, on the other hand, there is Southwark Bridge, a Dickensian hidden gem, as well as the thrill-a-minute wobbly Millennium footbridge. Further along, there’s Tower Bridge, without a doubt London’s coolest bridge. Then there’s the creepy Greenwich foot tunnel, complete with antique wooden lifts and even more antique lift operators, and, to cap it all, there are the grimy road tunnels at Rotherhithe and Blackwall, as well as the Woolwich car and passenger ferry which is, surprisingly in this most mercenary of times, completely free.
Some would say that a cable car would be a surfeit of excitement upon an already extant embarrassment of riches. To which, I’d say, why not take the slowest crossing? It also happens to be the most cultural: 20 minutes from Tate Britain to Tate Modern on the Tate boat.
Others would say: ‘why even go south?’ But that’s another article entirely…
Pic credit: TFL.
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PostFactMedia
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http://current.com/groups/urbanplanet/92570449_tfl-confirms-cable-car-for-2012-o...
Barcelona, Cologne, Hong Kong, Lisbon, New York and Singapore are amongst the cities
currently employing a cable car. Does TfL feel that London is lagging behind? After the Olympics, will the public want to use the cable car as an every-day mode of transport? Not only does it sound unrealistic to think that the public will choose to “take the cable car” to work, but the route (from one place in the middle of nowhere to another) seems extremely Olympics-centred. Will the cable car be purely used as a way to impress the masses of tourists organisers claim will visit London in 2012? (In fact most host cities experience a drop in tourism during the Olympics) Quoting Tfl analysts, it certainly seems so: “A cable car would bring excitement and iconic importance, which would generate interest in tourist visits.” Let’s go fly a kite. - 1 year ago
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