Woolwich ferry to close for up to six weeks
Transport for London have announced that the Woolwich ferry is to close for up to six weeks from the 24th July.
The service has been plagued by faulty ferries and equipment since new models replaced 1960s predecessors.
As part of that scheme, three former ferries enabling one spare was replaced by two.
For a two-boat service, that didn’t work too well and so services fell by half to just one ferry in operation for some years now.
TfL claim the six week closure will allow both ferries to be in operation at all times, though there will remain no resilience if any faults occur.
The two-boat service – bringing services back up to the decades-long norm- is due to start in September.
Compounding the problem are continual closures of Woolwich foot tunnel lifts.
With hundreds of new homes in North Woolwich both recently completed and underway, the link over the Thames is ever more vital to access Woolwich.
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If there has to be an East London road crossing, as politicians often seem to want, why not replace the ferry with a road bridge?
River traffic is much less than when the ferry was introduced by the LCC and a single moving section could be incorporated.
It could even be part of the flood defences.