Silvertown tunnel - why so close to Blackwall

[Givemethesun]

For fellow east Londoners

I’m not even sure building a tunnel that focuses on car use is sensible (why not build one for only buses/tubes), but seeing as we have built one, why on earth has it been built so close to Blackwall?!!! I don’t undestand? Would it not have made sense to built have another tunnel a bit more east - becton for example? Instead of right by current tunnel. What am I missing

Because there’s huge demand at Blackwall and the current tunnel can’t handle the huge volumes of traffic wanting/needing to use it.

Agree but I don’t understand how the Silvertown tunnel will ease this north bound? Maybe yes south bound it will on reflection. But I think north bound you basically have to travel nearly the whole way up the blackwall approach anyway to access Silvertown

Because the additional capacity the new tunnel will add to Northbound will relieve some (I hope all but I suspect not) of the stationary traffic stuck queuing on the Blackwall Tunnel Approach. Twice as much capacity may mean that traffic actually starts moving again rather than people sitting stationary for 1+ hours at busy times. Southbound isn’t quite as bad but Northbound is horrendous. No idea why some muppet thought it was a good idea to add an Ikea to an existing traffic bottleneck/blackspot.

I hope you’re right. Spent too much of my life queueing for the tunnel 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

TfLs own traffic modelling is predicting this will make traffic WORSE due to induced demand.

Same. I dread it.

I suspect that’s the Mayor’s aim as he’s done an impressive job of making the traffic 100 times worse in London so far.

Just waiting him to turn one of the Blackwall Tunnel lanes into a Cycle Superhighway so there’s only one lane for vehicles and the traffic will almost be backed up to France.

(Ex TfL transport planner here)
I suspect that the road user charging will do more for congestion than the new tunnel.
There is a long story here. Ken had tried to build a crossing further east - from the bottom of the north Circular.
However this was stopped when Boris got in. The residents of Woolwich etc in South London did not like the idea of that much traffic landing there.
They had a point, there are not any roads between the Blackwall tunnel approach and the M25 in south London that can handle the amount of traffic a crossing would create.
Once the decision was made for a new crossing in East London, Silvertown is the only real location.
Whether the decision for a new crossing was a good idea is another question!

In addition to what has been mentioned... there's probably very limited sites available for a tunnel. The riverbed has to be stable, the roads have to be in the right place, there the existing buildings,all the other tunnels already there...