There are roughly 33 bridges across the Thames within London. The furthest east in London is Tower Bridge.
To the east of Tower Bridge it's an entirely different story. There's just the Rotherhithe Tunnel, the Blackwall Tunnel, The Woolwich Ferry, two foot tunnels and a Dangleway, then nothing all the way out until the Dartford Tunnel and QE2 bridge.
There are some physical constraints to building further east. The first of these is a width issue. At Tower Bridge the Thames is 250m wide, whereas it's a vast 570m by the time it reaches Dartford. That sounds like a lot, but it pales in comparison to a list of the world's longest bridges.
Another physical constriction is height. The Thames in east London is still a regular shipping route so a bridge would have to be a high enough that ships could easily fit under. Again this is something to take into consideration for a new bridge, but by no means should it provide a serious barrier. The existence of Dartford's QE2 bridge is proof that both the width and height difficulties can be overcome.
As these parameters make bridge building difficult, should the question be why aren't there more tunnels beneath the river in the east? Well, there's a third issue that historically made that challenging. As you travel further east, the earth beneath the Thames gets softer, making tunnelling tough. Still, the three tunnels that already exist prove that this is again nothing more than a factor rather than a cause to give up.
Some of those constraints explain the lack of crossings pre-20th century, but as technology improved why hasn't London built more? Well, people did try.
- londonist.com/london/features...
Original video ( • Why are there no bridg... )
Channel ( / jayforeman )
- Video Chapters -
0:00 Introduction
1:20 East London Bridge Mystery
15:25 Thoughts & Questions
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