Anyone who drives around London will have realised that Tower Bridge has been closed for 3 months for substantial repairs. The traffic chaos on the first few days of closure has been enormous. Clearly an area to avoid for the present.

The unreasonable and unnecessary closure of Shorter Street which is nearby in the City of London has been covered in previous articles. It was done as part of the East-West Cycle Superhighway works and is now open only to buses.

At a meeting with Transport for London (TfL) it was suggested an alternative route from The Minories to Tower Hill for those vehicles who wanted to go west was to go via Royal Mint Street, Dock Street and East Smithfield. However an an examination of that route shows that it is likely that delays of over 8 minutes would result. See photograph below of the queuing traffic on Dock Street (and that was before the closure of Tower Bridge which will create even more difficulties).

Roger Lawson