Transport:
London rushes to keep up with increased demand for ferries with plans for new piers along Thames River
Skip the Tube and commute by boat. London rushes to keep up with increased demand for ferries with plans for new piers along the Thames.
Feel the breeze on your face, watch the gulls, catch the sunlight on the water — and all on your way to work. The daily commute needn’t be a suffocating Underground ride with your nose in someone else’s armpit.
Increasing numbers of people are travelling to work by boat, especially in London. Demand in the capital is so great that 11 new piers are planned along the River Thames.
Jason Margetts lives in St Katharine Docks and often can’t face the Tube. Instead, he catches the Thames Clipper from Tower Millennium Pier to his office at Canary Wharf Pier. His commute takes about 15 minutes.
“It’s fantastic,” he says. “You get a coffee on board, and on the way home you can have a gin and tonic or a glass of wine.”
As head of Savills’ east London residential development team, Margetts reckons that commuting by river is becoming a powerful reason to buy close to the water.
“Huge developments are taking place in the east, for instance at Greenwich Peninsula, and it is great to tell buyers they can get around by bus, DLR or catch the boat all the way to Westminster,” he says. “The river is so convenient because it cuts straight through the middle of London.”
MBNA Thames Clippers expects 4.2 million journeys to have been made in 2016 on its central and east London services, up from 3.3 million three years ago.
To meet demand, Westminster Pier was revamped this summer and the piers at Blackfriars and Embankment are being extended. People who buy in the new developments around Battersea will get a fresh Battersea Pier, and there will be new ones at Canary Wharf East and Providence Wharf for those living on the Isle of Dogs.
Over the next few years, other new piers will be opened close to the O2, where Barratt is building, at Royal Wharf, where Ballymore is busy, and at Wapping, Rotherhithe, Greenwich and Beckton. For afterdinner travellers, there will also be a pier at there ar entrance of the Savoy Hotel.
Thames Clippers in the west of London currently run during rush hour but are restricted by shallow water and speed limits.
Regular waterborne commuters testify that their journeys are much less stressful than strap-hanging on a train. Tommy Lydon works in finance at Canary Wharf and lives in Surrey Quays. He catches the crossriver ferry from the Hilton Hotel to his office.
“It’s a tiny pier with a small boat which crosses the Thames six times an hour. It only takes five minutes to make the journey. Frankly, it takes longer to moor than to cross,” Lydon says. “It is better than walking 20 minutes to Canada Water Tube and bustling on to a packed train.” In the summer, he can sit on deck and soak up the evening sunshine.
Of course, commuting by boat is not confined to the capital. Sid Williams lives in Falmouth and takes the passenger ferry to St Mawes. It stops just outside the trendy Idle Rocks Hotel, where he is a concierge.
“It takes 50 minutes to drive round the bay, but the ferry goes every half-hour and takes 20 minutes,” he says. “You can grab a bun from the bakery in Falmouth and a cup of tea onboard and watch the porpoises, the dolphins and the moonfish. It is so beautiful.”