River of Gilligan’s dreams

Andrew Gilligan has an interesting article in today’s London Evening Standard, trailing a PolEx report that won’t be available until tomorrow, suggesting that a highly effective boat service could be set up for £30m. I will look for the report tomorrow, but in the meantime I make three points.

Firstly, Gilligan says

Yet this would be no ordinary service. It would never be stopped by traffic or points failures.

That may be true, and it is some time since the Thames froze. However, the Thames is a tidal river. A very tidal river, it moves at speeds of up to 8 knots. Moreover, the tides do not occur at the same time every day. Altogether, this means that the Thames is fundamentally unreliable for timekeeping purposes as, from the point of view of the commuter, you have to leave at a different time each day to get to work on time and may well have a variable amount of hanging around (or extra work). If the Thames Barrier, in this or a future incarnation, is permanently raised and the Thames is no longer tidal, this could change.

Secondly, Mr Gilligan makes a somewhat simplistic analysis of cost/benefit for buses and tube extensions. Certainly, the numbers might be, prima facie, better for the river but it does not consider at all how well served riverside locations already are against the relative lack of provision in other areas.

Thirdly, Mr Gilligan, when not continuing his obsession with standing outside on moving vehicles ¹ makes an interesting admission:

Boris has sometimes been accused of lacking a big idea, an equivalent of Ken Livingstone’s congestion charge — something people can point to and say: “He did that.” I think a new TfL riverbus could be it.

I was rather under the impression that the New Routemaster was meant to be the big idea. Maybe Gilligan has gone off it, or realised that it’s either not going to happen or, if it does, will be suboptimal value for money.

I would add Mr Gilligan needs to be a bit more careful about his sweeping statements.

You only have to try it once to know why. In the morning rush hour, the traffic in Greenwich inches round the one-way system. The trains are slow and crowded. On the river, charging upstream at 30 knots (35mph), we are the fastest thing in a five-mile radius.

AsPolitical Animal and Boris Watch point out on Twitter, within five miles of Greenwich are trains (60mph), the Jubilee line (50mph), High Speed One (140mph) and City Airport (takeoff speed for a STOL aircraft ~160mph, although they don’t make many stops in London) (here, here and here).

xD.

1 – “On the open rear deck of the Cyclone Clipper, two newcomers to the service are grinning to themselves at the sudden surge of speed, and the glorious, if rapidly receding, views of the Royal Naval College. Inside, the more seasoned passengers have settled down with their laptops. There is a small buffet, and on the way home you can even get a massage.” I wonder how many people would be standing outside in today’s inclement weather.