Construction of the Wilkinson Eyre-designed cable car across the River Thames will begin this summer, Transport for London (TfL) has announced
Up to 2,500 people per hour will be able to make the 1.1km, five-minute journey across the river in one of structure’s 34 gondola cabins.
The scheme’s cost was originally estimated to be as low as £25million when it was announced in July 2010 and TfL had said that it would not be paying to build the project.
TFL confirmed it would now be providing ‘upfront funding for the cable car’ and would seek to recoup its costs but could not guarantee that taxpayers would not foot at least some of the bill.
A spokesperson said the decision to pay upfront was ‘to aid the quick delivery’ of the project, which TfL was ‘striving’ to deliver in advance of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.
They said this remained ‘an extremely challenging timeline for a complex project’ and could not provide a date by which they were confident the scheme would be completed.
The spokesperson said that the initial costing had been a ‘preliminary estimate’ and that the £50.5million contract included operational running costs of £5.5million for up to three years.
The Greater London Authority (GLA) has given its final approval for Wilkinson Eyre’s proposed cable car across the River Thames in east London
Capable of carrying 2,500 passengers an hour, the new route will link the O2 arena in Greenwich with the Excel exhibition centre in the Royal Docks - both 2012 Olympic venues.
Last month fears were raised that the £25 million scheme might cross the ‘public safety zone’ of the nearby London City Airport, however those concerns were subsequently dismissed by the National Air Traffic Control Services (NATs).
Expected to complete by July 2012, the cable cars would run 50m above the water and, according to Mayor Boris Johnson, would be ‘as good as a bus route with 30 buses on it’.
Johnson, said: “With permissions signed and sealed we are now a significant step closer to being able to cruise the east London skyline via an elegant cable car spanning the mighty Thames.
Source: the Architect's Journal
