Reopening Hammersmith Bridge: time to reconsider?
Opinion here seems to favour reopening Hammersmith Bridge to motor traffic: I think that would be a mistake, and I'll try to explain why — and please excuse the length of this post, but I want to set out the argument properly.
First, the wider context. Two of the most serious problems facing us are atmospheric pollution and the climate emergency, and emissions from motor traffic are major contributors to both. Consequently, it’s clear that seriously effective action is needed to reduce our reliance on such traffic. In fact, as the HoC Science and Technology Committee recently said (https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/news-parliament-2017/clean-growth-report-published-17-19/), recent Conservative governments have promised more but done less on the climate crisis, and they must change this by introducing effective policies; one such is to reduce vehicle emissions.
The problems with Hammersmith Bridge give a real opportunity to start on this process: the FoI request by Richmond Cycling produced valuable information showing that, of the 25,000 vehicles that crossed the bridge in an average 24 hour period before the closure, around 10,000 (over 40 per cent) have simply disappeared (the phenomenon of traffic evaporation). So the closure of the bridge has achieved a net reduction in vehicle trips as people have found alternative means of travel: could this provide a useful example for a method of reducing car use?
If the bridge was repaired just sufficiently to secure the structure's safety so as to carry pedestrian, cycle and motorcycle traffic it would, I believe, cost very considerably less and yet still provide a valuable means of crossing the river; the money saved could be used for more useful purposes whilst providing a permanent means of reducing traffic.
Of course it’s not enough on its own: positive as well as negative means are needed (for example, to make public transport more user-friendly), but it would provide an exemplar that could be used elsewhere to make a real start on tackling both pollution and global warming.
But this is just one example of the kind of action that’s needed to reduce our car use. The usual methods of road planning (to build more or futile attempts to ‘increase the flow’) only make things worse in the end, because they only attract more people on to the extra capacity so that you end up as before, but with yet more polluting vehicles on the streets.
It will be suggested by some, no doubt, that additional crossing point(s) are needed - indeed, it has already been done in this thread - but this would, I think, be a huge mistake and would achieve the opposite of what’s necessary to start dealing with the serious problem of too much reliance on the car.
One final point: no doubt some responders will say that this is anti-car (it isn’t: the car has brought great benefits in increasing people’s mobility) or that it’s trying to stop people using cars at all (it isn’t: it’s simply a step in reducing our reliance on them).
Over to you: what do people think, and why?
Richard Carter ● 2622d13 Comments