Posts Tagged ‘poplar’
A real river crossing campaign – run the 108 to the Olympic Park
Amid the row over Greenwich Council’s dumb Bridge The Gap campaign, a little opportunity to improve cross-river links is looking set to be squandered. Ever one to leap on board a passing bandwagon, this website is today launching an “all-out” campaign to extend the 108 bus to the Olympic Park.
You what? I’ll explain. Transport for London’s launched a consultation on which buses should run into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park when people start moving in later this year. It suggests seven services, including a night bus, should run into the park.
All well and good. But one’s missing. Why can’t we have a bus from south of the river to the Olympic Stadium?
The 108 is one of London’s oldest bus routes – it’ll celebrate its centenary in March next year. In 1930, it schlepped all the way from Clapton to Crystal Palace, charging a shilling if you were mad enough to want to ride all the way, but there was never long to wait – double-decker buses ran every three and a half minutes through the Blackwall Tunnel back in those days.
The route’s shrunk, grown, shrunk again, gone 24-hours (a lifesaver) and been tweaked since – the double deckers vanished in the late 1960s, but the Stratford to Lewisham service has been the sole bus service through the tunnel for decades. For many years, it was the only public transport link across the Thames east of Rotherhithe. Back then, it actually wasn’t a bad service, if the tunnel was behaving itself – in the mid-90s, when I lived in Greenwich and went to college in Clerkenwell, it only took 20 minutes or so to get me to Bromley-by-Bow station so I could get a Tube to Farringdon; making it pretty much the equal of taking the train.
But while other transport links have got better, the poor old 108′s been left in the shadows – an enforced diversion around the Millennium Dome building site months before North Greenwich station opened ruined it as a commuting route to anywhere but North Greenwich, but despite the idiotic transport arrangements around the Dome, it still carries healthy numbers through the tunnel each day. Remember, it’s a damn sight cheaper than the Tube.
I’ve heard loads of horror stories of endless waits for people in Blackheath who depend on it for travel to North Greenwich – they desperately need extra buses, but instead those get thrown into the schedule late at night for chucking out time at the O2. It’s time for someone with felt pens and a bus map to get to work and rearrange matters – but so far, there’s no sign of progress.
But there’s one change to the 108 that could gives us a real – yes – Olympic legacy, and might also improve the service. Tweaking the end point so it ran into the Olympic Park, rather than Stratford bus station, would still enable it to serve Westfield and the massive transport interchange there; but would also get it away from the awful traffic in Stratford, bring a 24-hour bus service from south of the river to the Olympic Park, and help us get to and from events there.
It’s a change that’d cost very little, but would make the regenerated Olympic Park feel a bit closer to us in an area that’s not been left with many physical reminders of the Olympics (especially once the mud goes).
Obviously, I’ll now be arranging a photoshoot with various pub landlords, kebab house magnates and the Stratford Westfield Massage Angels as part of my “all out” campaign to bridge this gap, but in the meantime, if you want to suggest it to TfL, head to its consultation page – it closes on 22 February.
Greenwich’s secret ferry
I went over to Trinity Buoy Wharf‘s open weekend the other day (thanks to Diamond Geezer for the reminder). I’d only been there once before – for a work thing on a cold day about 10 years ago – so it was good to go back and have a proper wander around in the sunshine.
If you’re not familiar with it, Trinity Buoy Wharf is directly opposite the Dome, and the location of London’s only lighthouse. Climb the narrow stairs to the top of the lighthouse, and you can peer back across the river while listening to the eerie Longplayer.
Once the place where the river’s buoys were made, Trinity Buoy Wharf is now a thriving community of artists and small businesses. It’s a little bit cut off from the surrounding area, tucked away at the end of an old street called Orchard Place. Once home to the isolated community of Bow Creek, its residents were moved out following the flood of 1928.
So there’s a ferry from North Greenwich Pier, run by an old police boat called Predator II. Its main job is as a crew shuttle for Thames Clippers, which is based at Trinity Buoy Wharf. But it’s also available if you need to visit Trinity Buoy Wharf, running between 5am and about 7.30pm, charging a £2 fare. Trips were free at the weekend, and if it’s choppy it’s not for those prone to seasickness – but it’s a quick way to get across the Thames. It’s hardly advertised, though – there’s a tiny timetable and phone number at the western end of North Greenwich Pier – and it’s probably best to give Thames Clippers a call first to check it’s running.
With work under way on the cable car Boris hasn’t got the money for (the riverside walk is set to close next week), taking the boat seems a cheaper, and more sensible way of crossing the river.
