Tower Bridge Closure and Shorter Street Closure

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

Dock Street 2016-09-14 13-15.JPG

Driving in the Cycle Superhighway on Shorter Street

Car in Cycle Superhighway Shorter St-AThe  photograph above is of someone mistakenly driving into the Cycle Superhighway which runs along Shorter Street in the City of London (near Tower Bridge). The driver appeared unaware that this is not a road but a two-way cycle path.

This is an easy mistake to make because Shorter Street used to be open to all traffic but now consists of a cycle lane and a bus lane. No cars are supposed to use either but sat-navs still direct you to turn right to get onto Lower/Upper Thames Street and there is no obvious alternative route.

A few moments after the photo was taken, another car entered the bus lane, no doubt for the same reason.

The writer has been asking TfL to explain which alternative route they expect vehicles to take but I have yet to get an answer. There were many objections to the closure of Shorter Street which was totally unreasonable and shows a lack of understanding of routes vehicles need to take. I will be pursuing this issue until I get some sensible answers.

Roger Lawson