The development site of Barking Riverside and the residential area of Thamesmead are very close to each other, geographically. Unfortunately, traveling between them isn't so easy, as there is a huge chunk of water acting as a barrier. The Thames Gateway Bridge also doesn't exist, so people have to take a very long way round to get between the two. In around 15 years time, Barking Riverside will have its own beach, pier and numerous retail outlets, so a connection to a huge residential site with a Crossrail station makes sense, especially as the two are only a couple of miles apart as the crow files. However, getting between the two isn't so easy. Here are some examples.
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| The driving route between Thamesmead and Barking Riverside. |
Driving between the two takes a ridiculous amount of time, taking 40 minutes on a quiet Saturday evening, a distance of over 21.1 miles. This time sounds reasonable (unlike the distance), but if there was a road bridge in place this journey would take around 5-10 minutes instead. Both of the roads used here that cross the Thames are incident-prone and are frequently closed, these being the infamous Blackwall Tunnel and Dartford Crossing. Going from Thamesmead-Barking Riverside via Purfleet or Poplar just doesn't sound right. Google maps also think that using the Woolwich Ferry would take even longer (by 11 minutes), partly due to the queuing system.
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| Cycling between the two isn't particularly fast either. |
The cycling route is much more direct, using the Woolwich Foot Tunnel. However, bikes can't travel as fast as cars so it still takes slightly longer, although in rush hour this method might actually be quicker, even though you'll be risking your life cycling along the dual carriageway. Walking between the two takes 3 hours and creates a diversion through Barking as walking along the A13 without a pavement isn't going to end well, so that's not a sensible option either. That leaves good old public transport.
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| Step 4/5, the 238 to Barking. |
Taking the bus takes nearly 3 hours and involves 4 changes for the quickest route, which is far from ideal. Currently, you have to ride the 472 all the way to North Greenwich (taking over 40 minutes at times), then use one of the most unreliable bus services in London for three stops through the Blackwall Tunnel, the 108. After that, it's a short hop across the road to the 115 to East Ham, then a 5/238 to Barking, followed by an EL1 to Barking Riverside, which will be free soon thanks to the introduction of New Routemasters, encouraging fare evasion. Taking 3 hours to cover a distance of around a mile is a waste of life, so you can rule out that option.
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| Take the train, or not... |
If buses aren't your biggest fan, then the most logical thing to do is the train. However, Barking Riverside doesn't have a train station and walking from Dagenham Dock is going to take around 35 minutes. Abbey Wood, the closest station to Thamesmead, is also a 40 minute walk away from some of the houses there, so using the rails is eliminated as well. How about a combination of both?
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| Escaping Thamesmead. |
From the top of my head, the quickest route is to take a 472 bus to Woolwich Arsenal, a DLR train to West Ham, c2c rail service to Barking and then catch the EL1 to Barking Riverside. This still takes over an hour, so we can conclude that traveling between the two is a nightmare, thanks to the Thames.
There are four solutions to this problem, all of them fairly effective and also very expensive. Here they are:
- Build a road bridge from the Riverside to the Thamesmead, allowing cars and buses to travel between the two easily, making connections between South and East London much easier. The EL1 could be extended through to Woolwich, which would be incredibly useful for Ilford and Barking residents.
- Extend the London Overground from Barking Riverside to Thamesmead. This wouldn't be as useful as a road bridge, but would still allow cross-river travel fairly quickly and is probably one of the cheaper options, seeing as its going to Barking Riverside anyway.
- Extend the DLR from Beckton to Barking Riverside, down to Thamesmead and loop down to Woolwich Arsenal, creating a circuit and clockwise/anti-clockwise services. Other than confusing passengers, this would work very well, but is the most expensive option out of the lot.
- Extend Thames Clippers through to Thamesmead and Barking Riverside. This would require another vessel and two new piers, but this would attract quite a few passengers from the Riverside. Having said that, they cost a fortune and not everyone living in these areas will be able to use them regularly. Bang goes that theory...
This solution should've been solved a long time ago, but here are my suggestions. They may not be great, so if you have any ideas of your own, drop a comment on my flickr page or something. Thanks for reading! I've also updated the tenders page again, with a new feature that will be more detailed soon.
