Boris Johnson has announced plans to build the longest road tunnel in the world under London to combat traffic congestion.
It would run for more than 15.5 miles, east to west, beneath the city, diverting millions of cars, vans and lorries from the streets above. A second tunnel would be almost 11.2 miles long. The Laerdal road tunnel in Norway is the world’s longest, at 15.2 miles.
The mayor’s plan to ease congestion also involves a possible ban on HGVs at peak hours and a new charge on delivery vans to reverse the trend among office workers of ordering goods online and having them sent to their desks. One solution, he believes, is to make better use of “click and collect” facilities at Tube and train stations.
Traffic in central London is expected to rise by as much as 60 per cent in the next 14 years as the city’s population increases from 8.6 million to 10 million. Mr Johnson, who is due to step down as mayor in May, said the tunnels could be completed by the mid-2030s and would reduce congestion by 20 per cent. They would cost about £15 billion each and would be funded through toll charges.
The northern city tunnel would run from the A40 at Park Royal in west London to the A12 at Hackney Wick in east London. The more ambitious southern tunnel would run from the A4 at Chiswick in the west to the A13 at Beckton in the east. There are also plans for a series of small tunnels, or “fly-unders”.
Mr Johnson’s successor — probably either Sadiq Khan or Zac Goldsmith — might well opt to scrap the scheme, but will themselves be under pressure to resolve the congestion problem.
Mr Johnson said that a feasibility study would be carried out into plans to ban, restrict or charge lorries and vans from entering the centre of London. He told The Times: “At the moment, we have too many huge, heavy vehicles thundering through the streets without anything in them, and we can sort that out.
“We have got 45 per cent growth in white vans caused by internet shopping, and a colossal growth in minicabs caused by the arrival of new apps. So we have to manage both of those phenomena and it is not easy.”
He said he wanted “better use of click-and-collect facilities for internet shopping and making use of Tube stations and other facilities for picking up your goods, rather than everyone receiving goods door to door”.
• The number of people killed on the road in busy city areas rose by 10 per cent in the 12 months to September last year, the Department for Transport said.
A total of 1,780 lives were lost, 49 more than in the previous year or an increase of about 3 per cent. However, the number of deaths recorded on British roads with a speed limit of up to 40mph — officially classed as built-up routes — rose by 71, to 780.
Traffic levels across the country crept up by 2.2 per cent. Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “That might partly explain why the downward trend in road deaths has plateaued in recent years.”