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£60M Wasted On Pointless London Transport That No One Uses...


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HOLA441

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2890712/Boris-s-high-wire-howler-Not-zip-wire-debacle-60m-cable-car-Thames-s-used-NO-commuters-ROBERT-HARDMAN.html

Few people seem to be in much of a rush during the rush hour here. There is certainly nothing that could be described as a queue at this station. At times, there is no one at all.

According to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, the £60 million trans-Thames shuttle — Britain’s first urban cable car, no less — is a ‘much-needed new river crossing in the east of our great city’. He has even incorporated it into the hallowed London Tube map.

However, according to figures just revealed (but only after a Freedom of Information request), this is arguably the most pointless piece of public transport in the country.

For since its grand ope Air Line to travel to work appears to have fallen to an all-time low — of none at all.

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Anyone on here used it? I presume this is far too slow for anyone in London to use and if it goes nowhere useful why would anyone be using it?

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HOLA442

Went on it once. We were the only people getting on at the southern end, we saw two cars with passengers in going the other way, and we were the only people in the terminal at all at the northern end. Admittedly this was at a weekend in the depths of winter. However, at any time I suspect most of the passengers are tourists going on it just the once, for the experience.

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HOLA443
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HOLA445

The Emirates Air Line cable car is a good candidate for most predictable white elephant ever. It connects the Greenwich peninsula, a half-dead area containing a leisure venue that everybody arrives by tube to use with the Royal Docks, a half-dead area containing an exhibition centre that everybody arrives by DLR to use. The resident population is low and there's nothing resembling an urban town centre in either area. Poorly guarded Arab oil money meets civil servants attempting top-down urban regeneration, malinvestment ensues.

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HOLA446

It's the sort of expenditure that if a company was doing it then any sensible investors would be selling stock quick fast.

It's on a par with the fancy and glossy company brochure/expensive art at reception/private jets etc as a sell signal.

Edited by billybong
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HOLA447

It's not public transport, it's a tourist attraction similar to the London Eye.

If you actually ever wanted to get from North Greenwich (the only thing there is the O2) to the DLR, the Jubilee line is cheaper, leaves you closer to central London, and Canning Town actually connects two branches of the DLR.

I went on the air line once, and it was made mildly exciting due to an unscheduled mid-crossing stop.

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HOLA449

It's not public transport, it's a tourist attraction similar to the London Eye.

If you actually ever wanted to get from North Greenwich (the only thing there is the O2) to the DLR, the Jubilee line is cheaper, leaves you closer to central London, and Canning Town actually connects two branches of the DLR.

I went on the air line once, and it was made mildly exciting due to an unscheduled mid-crossing stop.

Not quite nothing there. I used it to go to the Cutty Sark.

Possibly part of the problem is that it is higher cost than normal public transport. A bit like the Dartford charge, doesn't matter if you use it a few times a year but if you want to use it twice a day it mounts up.

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HOLA4410
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HOLA4411

Not quite nothing there. I used it to go to the Cutty Sark.

Cutty Sark is 2 miles from the dangleway, wouldn't the DLR or clipper have been a better way?

As someone who lives in that area, I have no idea what I would use the dangleway for. I don't know any other locals who use it either.

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HOLA4413

Cutty Sark is 2 miles from the dangleway, wouldn't the DLR or clipper have been a better way?

As someone who lives in that area, I have no idea what I would use the dangleway for. I don't know any other locals who use it either.

DLR would have been better if seeing the Cutty Sark was the only reason to head in that direction, but I had never been on a cable car of any shape or form.

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HOLA4414

Well into the 1990s most people (including myself) said Canary Wharf was a white elephant. Crossrail was first proposed in 1974. There's a Crossrail 2 project that will hopefully get off the drawing board and will link Hackney with Chelsea - maybe in 15 or 20 years. Major transport infrastructure projects in London usually take decades, not least because the slightest suggestion of development normally stirs up a hornet's nest of nimbys. In areas where London is expanding rapidly it makes sense to put the transport infrastructure in first.

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HOLA4415

Wasteful maybe but it equates to about 20 seconds of deficit borrowing (@ ~100bn/yr), almost as much time as it took to write this post.

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