Transport for London (TfL) and Riverlinx Limited, the consortium designing, building, operating and maintaining the new tunnel, have confirmed that the Silvertown tunnel - linking Newham to the Greenwich Peninsula with average journey time savings expected to be up to 20 minutes at peak times -  is planned to open on 7 April 2025. 

With construction work on the Silvertown project now coming towards a close, and operational readiness testing underway ahead of the tunnel opening, work is moving to installing the infrastructure which will support the new zero-emission bus routes that will serve the Silvertown tunnel – including the new cycle-shuttle service under the Thames. 

To help manage traffic levels across the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnels, repay costs for building the new Silvertown tunnel, and cover ongoing maintenance and operation costs at both tunnels, a user charge will be introduced. Without introducing this user charge at both tunnels, there would likely be high levels of traffic and congestion in the area, which would lead to detrimental air quality impacts, as well as longer journey times.

 The Victorian-era Blackwall tunnel suffers from frequent closures - more than 700 times a year - which result in large tailbacks, poor air quality and millions of hours lost due to drivers being trapped in traffic congestion. Throughout the construction of the new 1.4km tunnel, first announced in 2012 and which began in 2021, more than 1,860,000 t of material have been transported to and from the site via river rather than using roads - helping to remove around 110,000 lorry trips from local roads around the construction site. The TBM Jill (named after Jill Viner - London's first female bus driver), was also innovatively turned around within the rotation chamber in Greenwich to then bore the second tunnel back towards Newham - a UK engineering first.

For more information, please click here and uk/77 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit https://tfl.gov.uk/ and https://www.riverlinx.co.uk. 02/25.