What's it like inside the Silvertown Cycle Bus

Transcript

00:00Well, it's finally open. It's around 8am on the 7th of April and Sadiq Khan's £2.2 billion

00:10Silvertown tunnel is being used by traffic. It opened early this morning and as things

00:16stand just now it's been moderately well used. There is a flow of traffic but it's nowhere

00:20near as busy as the Blackwall tunnel. Is this going to work? Well, the issue is if this

00:25takes traffic from Blackwall and smooths the flow there, then Sadiq Khan will say this

00:30has been worthwhile. I'm very proud of this. This is a scheme and Boris Johnson deserves

00:35credit. First conceived by Boris Johnson, we've improved it hugely from Boris Johnson's

00:41plans. Some of his ideas are bonkers, like the Garden Bridge. Some are quite good, like

00:45supporting those in the south and the east. We've improved it to make sure there are more

00:49improvements for cyclists, more improvements for pedestrians, making sure we improve the

00:54quality of the, have a reserved bus lane, but also ensure there are 21 zero emission

00:59buses going across the Blackwall and Silvertown. When you introduced the ULEZ, you always had

01:03grace periods for drivers to enable them to get used to the charities. Will you do the

01:07same here? It's really important. Drivers don't rely upon a grace period. My advice

01:11to anybody is join the AutoPay scheme. £2.7 million is now AutoPay included. Don't risk

01:19getting a £108 fine. When are you going to put the tools up? We're not. We're going to

01:23keep them under review for a year. We always do. We keep all that under review. This tunnel,

01:29the surrounding roads, how the scheme is working, issues around air quality, make sure it improves

01:35and so forth. Those will all be kept under review. It'll take at least a year to get

01:39enough data to have a proper analysis of that EULEZ from our experience with the ULEZ.

01:42We'd like to have proper robust data, hopefully peer reviewed as well. What we've seen so

01:46far, there are a number of cars, there are some buses, they're mostly empty and the cycle

01:51bus has been running through as well, as well as the new SL4 Superloop. The cycle bus that

01:56went south on this way down to North Greenwich was empty. One's just come the other way with

02:02one cyclist on board. Time will tell whether this tunnel is essentially going to be used

02:07by Londoners, whether it's going to pay its way and whether there are environmental concerns

02:13caused by the amount of traffic coming through here. One thing for sure though is, it's pretty

02:17noisy.