please empty your brain below

>"Plans are afoot for a new bridge across the Thames. A new footbridge, that is."

I see what you did there.
Chauffer? Chauffer? Who has one of them? We might have a driver these days but chauffers went out with beehive hairdos.
Presumably the naming rights wouldn't be forever? A one off payment to create the Sports Direct Jubilee Footbridge - that seems very financially inefficient. They could make so much more money if they held the rights up to tender every year or so. Wouldn't that be marvellous - a constantly changing footbridge name. Perhaps they could put some big LCD signs on the side so that it can beam ads into the Thames 24/7.
There is a major infrastructure project which was named after an event that took place two years before its opening - the Jubilee Line.

And I can't see the good folk of Battersea trooping across this bridge to get to Imperial Wharf station, when Britain's busiest railway station is closer to the south end of the bridge. (Wouldn't a couple of platforms on the south bank be cheaper anyway?)

I thought this article was going to be about this project
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/residents-attack-nowhere-bridge-for-bikes-8046030.html
Chauffers may have gone but you still see the occasional chauffeur.
Actually that sounds like a very good idea Scott, seeing that the UK has sold just about everything else.;-)
If the walkway were to continue a little further inland than the shoreline, it looks as though it would meet a ramp, which is presumably there for road/rail maintenance vehicles to get onto the track. That leads down to Townmead Road outside the unfriendly notices, so cyclists are at least on what looks like a public road and pedestrians are also at the station entrance. Also, the Hungerford footbridges are already called the 'Golden Jubilee Footbridges', so this one will have to be the 'Diamond Jubilee Footbridge', or you have a few million to spare, DG, it could be 'The Diamond Geezer Jubilee Footbridge'.
Great article with some interesting points.

To clarify, we have instigated this process and designed this bridge because we feel strongly that it will bring clear and lasting benefits to residents and businesses on both sides of the river.

The proposal has been actively promoted by residents groups on both sides of the river, and is supported by the GLA's Richard Tracey, Jane Ellison MP, along with the LB Wandsworth and LB Hammersmith & Fulham council leaders. Consultation has taken place with key stakeholders such as Transport for London, Network Rail, The Environment Agency and the Port of London Authority and English Heritage, and local freeholders and residents, the design team have also been working closely with the planning departments at both Hammersmith & Fulham and Wandsworth.

The proposal has been developed over the past 12 months to accommodate all the consultees’ considerations whilst maintaining vigour to the design that celebrates the journey across the Thames. The design team includes Expedition Engineering (designers of the Olympic Velodrome and the Thames Cable car), Beckett Rankine (advisors on the London Eye, Cadogan pier and many others), RPS environmental consultants, Thompson Ecology and Oxford Archaeology. With the teams input, architects one-world design have produced a scheme which is both respectful of its context, maintaining views of the listed railway bridge, and exciting in its form.

With an estimated build cost of £22m LB Wandsworth’s financial appraisal of the proposal indicates that the scheme has a Benefit/Cost Ratio of 2.0:1. This indicates that the scheme would provide value for money, with a BCR above the TfL pass mark of 1.5:1 and at the level representing high value for money in Department for Transport guidance. However, given the economic situation, the intention at this stage is to achieve corporate sponsorship for the full amount in exchange for naming rights and for the bridge to be gifted to London at no cost to the taxpayer or Local Authorities. The GLA and local authorities would be arbiters of who is suitable in terms of potential sponsors.

In regard to the landing points of the bridge, the land on the Fulham side of the river is owned and maintained by St George, the developers responsible for Imperial Wharf. Access by foot and cycle is freely available at the moment from the highway network and the local authority intend to adopt this stretch of the Thames Path. The land on the Battersea side of the Thames is owned by Chelsea Estates Ltd. The existing office building at 12 Lombard Road is currently being demolished as per their separate planning application. Their scheme denotes the continuation of the Thames path up to the existing railway bridge and this area too will be adopted.

A full description of the scheme is available through the design and access statement and other supporting documents that will soon be available to download from the local authority websites. The LB Hammersmith & Fulham planning reference is 2012/03582/FUL, the LB Wandsworth reference is 2012/5261. Both local authorities will have our full submitted planning documentation available on their websites within a week.
Oh, a mile-long gap between bridges. What's that -- 10 minutes' cycling time? What about the four-mile gap between Tower Bridge and the Greenwich foot tunnel (where you're not allowed to cycle anyway), or the five-mile gap from the Greenwich foot tunnel to the Woolwich ferry? There are *no* ways of cycling across the river below Tower Bridge, if you'll forgive me for not trying to cycle through the Blackwall tunnel. The DLR and the Jubilee line won't take cycles. The Dangleway will but it charges.
Four years ago cycling group Sustrans promoted the idea of a bridge between Rotherhithe and the Isle of Dogs. What an excellent idea, and what a pity it was buried. http://www.sustrans.org.uk/assets/files/olympics/Sustrans_ThamesBridge_Demand_Forecast.pdf
"gifted to London at no cost to the taxpayer"

Just like the Barclays bikes and the Emirates cable car then...
> whilst maintaining vigour to the design that celebrates the journey across the Thames

Thanks for copy/pasting your existing press release, chris.
Is it too technically impossible to extend the footbridge path alongside the railway lines till they do reach a point where they could join up to the road systems on either side?

(Perhaps they could do something similar for the footpath alongside the Putney Railway Bridge, if that still exists).

Or would that be too like the late unlamented path on the Hungerford Bridge?
Alternative sponsor names:
The Skoda Bridge
Dr Martens Footbridge
SCA for Life Bridge (do some research..clue Pampers & Tena)
The Biffa Bridge
etc etc
"four-mile gap between Tower Bridge and the Greenwich foot tunnel" -

To be pedantic, what about:

Rotherhithe Tunnel

Overground between Rotherhithe and
Wapping (at certain times of the day)

the Hilton ferry
Nightmale beat me to the correct spelling of chauffeur. Interesting word - it comes from the French verb chauffer, to heat up, and it originally referred to the stoker of a steam engine. Quite amusing when you compare the traditional images of a stoker and a chauffeur.
It's ironic that DG spends his life trying to avoid marketing e-mails and now he gets one in his comments box!
apologies if my comment came across as marketing. I guess i am keen for everyone to know that a 12 month design process has looked at many issues and constrainst, but we still really think this is the right thing to do and is going to happen.

The key point of my reply was to add some light to the issues DG raises with regard to the landing points, please refer to 5th paragraph in above.
"Greenwich foot tunnel (where you're not allowed to cycle anyway)", This statement in Alan Burkitt-Gray's email is breathtakingly out of touch with reality. On a recent visit to this "foot" tunnel the ratio of cyclists not respecting the no-cycling rule was about 60% to 40%. Most of those cycling also appeared to be going at the maximum speed they could attain. Not a pleasant experience for pedestrians or for those actually pushing their bikes in this very confined space. Sadly, the only solution to this anti-social behaviour must be the installation of barriers.










TridentScan | Privacy Policy