Silvertown and Blackwall tunnel tolls generate £24.8 million in three months
Transport for London have published information on income over the first three months since the Silvertown tunnel opened.
Both the new tunnel and adjacent Blackwall tunnel now have tolls with private consortium Riverlinx operating the new £2.2 bn crossing, with tolls repaying construction costs.
According to TfL between opening day on 7 April and 30 June £24.8m was received in tolls and enforcement income. They put the compliance rate at 87.7 per cent.
The press release also notes queues have reduced on approaches to the Blackwall tunnel – which was a given.
It doesn’t mention that queues southbound each afternoon from the tunnels along the A2 and A102 are still miles long each day after £2.2bn spent.
Not quite what Mayor Sadiq Khan stated in 2021 when he claimed the new tunnel would “effectively eliminate – congestion in the area”, unless his definition of the area was extremely narrow and geographically limited.
They also note public transport benefits with two new bus routes and I’ve found the the Superloop route SL4 comes in handy on occasion though it is currently free. There’s also the 129 to Greenwich and Lewisham. Paying for them though? Nope for most journeys and destinations. I’d go on the DLR/Jubilee line/Liz line if heading to places like Greenwich, Lewisham or Woolwich.
Not having a route to Eltham and Kidbrooke continues to look an odd oversight given housing growth and fewer transport options.
Around 5,300 new homes are being built in Kidbrooke alone including from TfL themselves at one plot.
Another issue relating to tunnels and bus passengers is that more drivers are now diverting to the Woolwich ferry which is free with a steep rise in users and longer queues sometimes feeding back onto the ferry roundabout and in turn blocking buses between Charlton and Woolwich.
That latter point is another downside not mentioned by TfL in their news story but something often experienced.
Future
How things pan out from here will be interesting to observe. Many transport schemes take a while to bed in be it a new road, bus service or rail line. Invariably most fill up quickly.
Taking the SL4 can already be slow going to enter the tunnel north of the river due to extensive traffic lights before hitting traffic the other side in Greenwich. If more drivers do start using the tunnel once usage of autopay and local discounts increase – which many still appear unaware of – then buses could slow down and that express route becomes less of an express.
For now though, and while free, the SL4 is worth using.
Not sure if these figures are supossed to be impressive, but clearly, it will take an age to repay the construction and ongoing maintenance costs and the whole thing just seems pointless and a wasted opportunity. There is, of course, a need for more crossings in the east and replacing the Woolwich ferry with a tunnel or bridge seems like it would of been a much better option – I think I remember a comment or post on her saying something similar. Personally, I think an even better idea would have been to stick the crossing in Thamesmead. Some clever engineer / architect team would have been able to create a crossing that could accommodate all road vehicles, pedestrians, have provision for a transport crossing (I prefer the Barking overground / linking to Abbey Wood idea much better than a DLR but oh well) and perhaps could even have included some kind of river spanning public park. A real feet of engineering, something really spectacular that people would want to visit and use – and it would be aptly timed to help kickstart the building of the 10,000 or so homes that is planned but has no momentum or start date in site. And if we were being really clever it could also be tied into the much needed refurb of the town centre. Morrisons is begging to be knocked down and rebuilt with something more modern – a cinema and some restaurants wouldn’t go a miss (Nandos or a Wagas nothing outrageous). If there was possibly a need for a new uni/uni buildings this would also be a great spot (provided the crossing and transport are in place) + student housing, god forbid maybe even a bit of nightlife would follow.
Instead we just have a tunnel to basically nowhere, which has made a small slither of the A102 less busy, and created gridlock on the surrounding area.
But what do we know?
Placing the tunnel in a more needed location would have lost any justification to toll the Blackwall tunnel, so they used every excuse to place the tunnel in the wrong location, for the sole purpose of higher revenue.
The cost of taxing drivers was always stated as 100m a year, so 24m in 3 months is about right.
You are correct, it will be a lifetime of tolls, because the reports I’ve seen state about 70m to run, and maintain both tunnels, with only about 28m to pay off the ppi loan. And of course the obligatory couple of million to tfl for no reason but they want it.
2.2bn paid back at 28m a year, is going to take a lot longer than the expected 25 years they told everyone.
Those MPs in the 60s obviously had fat more morals than today’s bunch, when they almost refused to build the Dartford crossing, as they didn’t believe it would ever be free, and would start a road towards what we are now seeing.
Look up the East London River Crossing, or ELRiC as it was styled. Essentially a corridor running from Wickham Lane in Plumstead out to a new Thamesmead crossing, it would have required cutting two lanes through Oxleas Woods to create the North/South corridor for the proposed crossing. Greenwich Council immediaty opposed the Government’s scheme, as did the hundred odd residents in Plumstead facing CPOs for their houses.
What I remember from the 90s was a lot of activism by Greenwich council against ELRiC- they organised letter-writing stands in Woolwich high street, and there was no shortage of local campaigning by groups with genuine fears (bisecting the ancient woods) with groundless ones (the Woolwich ferry would be dismantled).
Ironically for the Eurosceptics in the area, it was the EU that stepped in after a High Court challenge by the Council proved that the Government hadn’t carried out any meaningful environmental impact assessments. Some of the press photos of the day are virtually identical to the ones seen during the Silvertown campaign, with protestors standing outside the High Court with near-identical placards. The Government eventually gave up interest in almost all the land it had acquired for the project
Can never understand people who choose to drive in London when public transport and cycling infrastructure are so good. I understand for lorries, delivery drivers and a handful of others which have no alternative, but the vast majority of people queuing here could save so much time catching a train.
Sadly so much of popular culture encourages a sedentary lifestyle where spending hours “sat” in traffic is preferable to driving/cycling to a station and changing modes. People will find any excuse to avoid it, even if the result is sitting in hours of traffic, SW states of the USA epitomise this and the result is crazy long car commutes as standard.
I grew up in Poplar not far from the north side of the blackwall tunnel and have spent my adult life living in various places in east and southeast London and now Medway. My family is spread out across east London, Surrey and Kent.
Public transport with young children is just not viable between these areas, possible yes, but when visiting family on the weekend it would take hours, if the trains are indeed running, lots of stress and about £50 per person.
It would take approximately 2 hours to get from my house to my parents in east London, hardly worth it for a quick hello or lunch.
Congestion in the blackwall used to just be a fact of life when visiting family but since the silver town have barely had to queue at all. I would happily pay any reasonable toll for the hours of my life I’ve got back since it opened.
Sorry for the lack of complaining I know that’s not what this sites about!
You clearly are a proudly single man but many people have friends with families and families themselves. You can’t take children on bikes in all weather for long distances or elderly people for that matter. You can’t have many children doing long journeys on the currently poorly connected public transport system.
Please try to consider others when deciding what the world should look like.
Pretty safe to assume you wear a suit to work, in a 9-5 office job and dont live in the south east.
These aren’t commuters around London, these are people travelling into London from Kent, a terribly unconnected, slow or expensive train only commute.
My 35 minute motorbike commute to my day and night shifts, is 75% cheaper and half the time as a train from Kent. Most of the people I pass are in vans.
Sure I could pay the 50% extra for the high speed, and still be 5 minutes longer on the train, but that doesn’t even get me to work for before 8 on a Sunday.
I could get the tube, oh wait, that doesn’t cover all of London or any of Kent.
No one chooses to sit in traffic, they just feel that they might as well pay a quarter of the cost of the train and use the car they already have, for a more reliable and convenient journey.
It’s almost like the highest fares in Europe are designed to keep us paying taxes on fuel and vehicles for a reason.
Such a shame that cyclists can’t use the new Silvertown Tunnel but they can use the cycle free bus to pass underneath the River Thames.
Would be nice if there could be a cycling pedestrian tunnel built that would allow cyclists to pass underneath the River Thames. Instead of using the Woolwich Ferry or Greenwich Pedestrian tunnel.
Nothin a shame abahrt it. The foot tunnel aint for cyclin n yourn use it all the time n couldn’t care less abahrt ittin people walkin. Still less ope change is comin n them fines start kickin in soon. Abahrt time yourn were fined for cyclin in foot tunnels.
Sounds like you didn’t go to school to learn proper English but I understand what you said.
There is another cross river pedestrian transport route that needs fixing – specifically the broken North Lift in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel
We need this lift fixed now. It has been out of operation for some months . Greenwich Council says they are waiting on a part .
How long does it take to get a part delivered ???
The Tunnel provides a cross river pedestrian route between Cutty Sark Gardens and Island Gardens in Tower Hamlets. Approx four thousand people a day use it and all they can do is use the eighty plus steps at the Island Gardens end – both up and down.
Come on Greenwich Council – get that lift fixed now. If there is a problem that say so !
Only a few things certain in life, tax death and the lift in the greenwich foot tunnel not working
I understand they need to generate money, however it is totally wrong if you forget to pay your toll your charges £90 instead of the £2.50 for the toll!! The Dartford Bridge toll is operated by the same company, if you forget to pay that charged your you pay £10 instead of the £2.50… SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE!!!!
Now those millions will be used to build a new bridge/tunnel or in less words another money making machine.
Does not matter how much money they rake in at TFL. The Mayot of London and TFL. Will be asking for more money from Central Government and coming up with morw money making schemes. Mainly by penalising motorists who already pay a lot to be on the road.
Bus services have declined since Sadiq Khan became Mayor of London. We have seen busy bus routes withdrawn, frequencies cut. Routes curtailed so they no longer run the full length of their original Routes forcing passengers to change buses to complete their journeys.
Now in January 2026 he is axing thr busy 472 bus route replacing it with the express limited stop SL11. Leaving a lot of people with out their local.bus. Everywhere else in London superloop bus routes have run in addition to existing bus services not replaced them completely.In Greenwich and Bexley Boroughs we always get a raw deal from the Mayor of London and TFL when it comes to improving local bus services and improving local bus links to areas across the Borough.
@ Graham.. I agree with you 100%. The Superloop routes are great for longer journeys. But are not suitable for shorter journeys which a lot of passengers make on a daily basis.
I also agree with you that motorist are heavily penalised for using tbe roads.
@Jack Donsworth: I agree completely. I have a car, but don’t jump into to drive to the corner shop. I mostly use public transport and reserve the car for the big shop and trips to the DIY sheds.
@Queue free: you understand that driving is a privilege for which there are costs, including paying to use the infrastructure.
@Andrew Gwilt: the two lanes are so narrow that you practically have to breathe in as you pass the bus, but do cyclists really want to ingest all the fumes as they peddle through a long-ish tunnel.
@Nicholas: forget to pay the charge to use a tunnel that has a toll. It’s not as if the terms and conditions are not known.