Drivers’ fury as TfL forces motorists to pay a toll fee at the Blackwall Tunnel – one of the busiest crossings across the Thames – to cover the costs of its new £2billion tunnel under the river (on top of the £12.50 ULEZ charge)
Furious drivers have slammed Mayor of London Sadiq Khan after it emerged they will soon have to pay a toll to use the Blackwall Tunnel – one of the busiest crossings over the Thames.
Transport for London has confirmed it will be charging drivers who use the previously free route, which is used by thousands of motorists commuting into the capital from the South East. The toll will vary by vehicle and has not yet been decided.
The news will cause yet more misery for motorists who are already bracing for £12.50 daily bills for entering the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) when it expands to cover Greater London at the end of the month. The ULEZ fee will apply to vehicles that do not meet minimum emissions standards.
The toll for the Blackwall Tunnel will only be implemented once the Silvertown Tunnel, which will link Silvertown and Greenwich, opens in 2025.
TfL say the fee will cover the £2billion cost of building and maintaining the new tunnel, with any surplus ‘reinvested’ into the wider transport network.
The toll for the Blackwall Tunnel will only be implemented once the Silvertown Tunnel, which will link Silvertown and Greenwich, opens in 2025. It comes as motorists brace for the extension of Ulez later this month
The Blackwall Tunnel is one of the few crossings in the area, with only the Dartford Crossing and Woolwich Ferry further east. It is currently used by 100,000 vehicles every day.
READ MORE – Anti-ULEZ ‘Blade Runner’ brazenly sabotages camera using a tree lopper
News drivers will soon have to pay to use the route has provoked fury among motorists, with entrepreneur Siama Qadar taking to Twitter to condemn Mr Khan for ‘another money making scheme to batter motorists’.
She added: ‘Not only are we being subjected to #ULEZ, but also have to pay for Blackwall Tunnel as well. @sadiqkhan and @tfl, please explain why you continue to hurt London motorists?’
A second Twitter user wrote: ‘Yeah it’s enough now… Sadiq Khan has to go. A charge on the Blackwall Tunnel is just another tax on Londoners trying to get around.
‘We’re not seeing this money reinvested back into communities or infrastructure either, so what is the point.’
A third added, sarcastically: ‘It’s nothing to do with making money its for air quality and saving our children’s lungs.’
News drivers will soon have to pay to use the route has provoked fury among motorists
The Blackwall Tunnel, which consists of two tunnels going north and south, has always been free since it opened in 1897.
The Silvertown Tunnel is being built to ease congestion on the crossing.
After 2025, motorists will pay a fee to use either the Silvertown Tunnel or the Blackwall Tunnel.
TfL said that while the charge would be used to pay for the new route, its main purpose was to ‘manage traffic levels’.
The news comes at a sensitive time for London drivers, many of whom are worried about the looming introduction of Mr Khan’s newly extended ULEZ zone.
The initiative, which intended to reduce air pollution emitted by toxic fumes from older vehicles, will see some drivers charged £12.50 a day. That amounts to a staggering £4,562.50 for the year.
Drivers approaching the Blackwall Tunnel in Greenwich after the start of the school holidays last month
The news comes at a sensitive time for London drivers, many of whom are worried about the looming introduction of Mr Khan’s newly extended ULEZ zone
Today, MailOnline revealed that security measures are being beefed up on ULEZ cameras in a battle to stop activists – who have called themselves ‘the Blade Runners’ – from cutting the wires.
By July, Transport for London (TfL) said 200 of the cameras – being installed to catch motorists driving vehicles below the emissions standards – had been stolen or vandalised.
Pictures and footage have now emerged on TikTok and Facebook of a black metal box surrounding the cables in an apparent move to protect the wiring.
A total of 2,750 new ANPR cameras are planned to be installed across the whole of London as the deadline date for Sadiq Khan’s hated ULEZ expansion looms.
So far almost 1,900 are in place, but it is not known how many have the new defence mechanism in place.
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