Transport for London has confirmed the planned tolls for the Blackwall Tunnel and new Silvertown Tunnel – with car drivers expected to pay up to £4 at peak times.
The tolls will apply to both tunnels once the new road, between the Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, opens next year, and the planned peak-time charges been pitched higher than those for the Dartford Crossing.
Critics have warned that a new tunnel – particularly one that feeds into the same approach road as the Blackwall Tunnel – risks overwhelming neighbourhoods near the Silvertown Tunnel with new traffic. TfL hopes that the charge will avoid this.
Car drivers are set to pay £1.50 at off-peak times, with HGVs charged up to £10. Drivers will have to sign up to TfL’s Autopay system, used for the central London congestion charge, to get the off-peak rates. Tunnel usage will be free overnights, between 10pm and 6am.
Some details of the new tolling were revealed by The Greenwich Wire last week, with Wednesday’s official announcement having been delayed by the general election. Tolling was part of the original Silvertown Tunnel proposals unveiled by Boris Johnson as London mayor in 2012, with the intention to use the money to pay the £2 billion bill for the new road. Sadiq Khan decided to continue with the scheme within weeks of his election in 2016.
A consultation on the planned charges has opened on the TfL website and will run for eight weeks. TfL has emphasised that a final decision will be taken by TfL’s board after taking into account the public’s views.
Full details of the proposed tolling:
Motorcycles, mopeds, motor tricycles:
£1.50 off-peak, £2.50 peak
Cars and small vans
£1.50 off-peak, £4 peak
Large vans
£2.50 off-peak, £6.50 peak
HGVs (buses, coaches, registered 9+-seaters exempt)
£5 off-peak, £10 peak
Peak is 6am-10am northbound, 4pm-7pm southbound.
Off-peak fares only available via TfL Autopay.
Penalty charge
£180 (£90 if paid within two weeks)
Only one PCN will be issued per day.
Planned concessions for drivers include:
– Half-price tolling for low-income households (those on certain benefits) in Greenwich, Lewisham, Bexley, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Barking & Dagenham, Bromley, Hackney, Havering, Redbridge Waltham Forest and the City. This will last for at least three years following the Silvertown Tunnel’s opening and will be reviewed after that.
– Small businesses, sole traders and charities who sign up to Autopay will get a £1 discount on off-peak charges (bringing the cost down to 50p).
– Taxis, blue badge holders and wheelchair-accessible minicabs will also be exempt. “Zero-mission capable” private hire vehicles would also be exempt.
– NHS staff and patients will be able to get refunds.
There are also some public transport concessions. Journeys on three cross-river routes – the existing 108 from Stratford International to Lewisham, the extended 129 from Great Eastern Quay to Lewisham, and the new SL4 from Canary Wharf to Grove Park – will be free. Given that many trips on these buses will not be crossing the river, TfL has said exact details of how this will operate will be announced closer to the tunnel opening date.
DLR trips between Cutty Sark and Island Gardens, and Woolwich Arsenal and King George V, will also be free, but longer-distance trips starting from or passing through those stations will be charged as normal, TfL has confirmed.
The “cycle shuttle” bus will also be free for at least the first year. TfL has confirmed that this will run from Millennium Way – outside North Greenwich station – on the south side of the river to Tidal Basin Roundabout/Western Gateway on the north side. Buses will run at least every 12 minutes from 6.30am to 9.30pm, seven days a week. The service will use vehicles which provide space inside to store bicycles, rather than a trailer and minibus.
The charges are more expensive than the Dartford Crossing at peak times but cheaper off-peak. Car drivers with accounts pay a flat charge of £2 at Dartford, or £2.50 without; HGVs pay £6, or £5.19 without. Residents in Dartford and Thurrock can get annual passes for up to £20.
But there are fears that a toll will push drivers towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel and Tower Bridge instead – which led to Lewisham and Southwark councils being opposed to the scheme from the start. Greenwich Council was an enthusiastic supporter of the tunnel, only calling for it to be halted in 2022 – long after work had begun.
There has also been unhappiness at the lack of local discounts for ordinary drivers, and the fact that west London crossings remain free while the main link between east and southeast London will soon be charged.
Khan said the tunnel would ” help deliver quicker, more reliable journeys in east London by easing congestion and making journeys up to 20 minutes faster”.
“The Silvertown Tunnel scheme has been years in the making, first developed back in 2012,” he said. “Since I become mayor in 2016, we have worked to improve it. TfL is launching this consultation to get feedback from residents and businesses on the proposals. I encourage Londoners in the area to get involved and have their say.”
But critics rounded on the project. The Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition said the need for tolling exposed the flaw in the plan for the tunnel – that it would attract new traffic.
Victoria Rance of the group said: “The mayor has created a toxic problem which he aims to solve by unjust tolls. We all know that new roads make new traffic and that new traffic, including non-ULEZ-compliant HGVs, will be going through already highly polluted parts of Greenwich and into Newham, the most polluted borough in London, where thousands of children are already exposed to illegal levels of air pollution.
“We are asking the mayor instead not to open the tunnel to general traffic, which will lock in higher local pollution and carbon emissions for decades – and to consider repurposing the tunnel for public transport, active travel, and cargo bikes, which will support his health, social justice, pollution and climate policies, rather than undermining them.
“There is a huge gap in provision of river crossings for cargo bikes, and no way for cargo bikes to cross the river east of Tower Bridge. The transition away from fossil fuel can only be achieved with greener freight solutions. Real change means real climate action, and now is the chance for our new transport secretary, Louise Haigh, to get involved and repurpose Silvertown Tunnel.”
Caroline Russell, a Green London Assembly member, said that London-wide road charging should be considered instead.
She said: “The tunnel is creating more road capacity and will simply lead to traffic jams and more pollution. I expect Londoners will respond to the consultation with creative ideas for repurposing the tunnel prioritising people walking and cycling and travelling on public transport.
“The construction contract was always going to mean bringing in tolling on Blackwall Tunnel – as well as Silvertown – so the consultation should not be a surprise, but I hope Londoners use it to tell the Mayor they want a fair charging system, rather than this piecemeal approach.”
Some who supported the new tunnel were also unhappy. Matt Hartley, the leader of Greenwich’s opposition Conservatives, said that TfL had failed to deliver new bus links that were indicated in previous consultations. Only two new bus routes – the 129 and the express SL4 – are to be introduced when the tunnel opens, with only the 129 stopping close to the two tunnel entrances.
He said: “The proposed discounts don’t go nearly far enough in mitigating the impact these tolls will have on people on low incomes – all the more so given Sadiq Khan’s failure to deliver adequate public transport alternatives such as the Eltham to Beckton tunnel bus route we were promised.
“Sadiq Khan’s proposal for a measly £1 discount on off peak tolls for small business owners – a policy which seemingly would only be guaranteed for a year, at that – is frankly an insult.
“Conservative councillors in Greenwich will continue to lobby for a complete local exemption from tolls for both Blackwall and Silvertown for residents and small businesses in our borough, and the other boroughs most impacted by the new tunnel.”
A Greenwich Council spokesperson encouraged residents to respond to the consultation, calling it an “important opportunity for residents and businesses to have their say on charges, discounts and exemptions at the Silvertown and Blackwall Tunnels”.
The council added: “We’ll continue to engage closely with TfL through the consultation and the Silvertown Tunnel Implementation Group, a body which TfL consults on issues like this.”
Most of the construction work on the new tunnel is finished, with some Blackwall Tunnel closures still taking place to allow for the road network to be altered. The road surface is expected to be laid in coming weeks, with TfL hoping to open the tunnel in the spring.
The consultation into the tunnel charges can be found on the TfL website.
Updated at 3pm with further details from TfL about the concessions, and at 6.15pm with a comment from Greenwich Council. Updated again at 1.30pm on Thursday with more details from TfL.
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