...and also opening later in 2022 will be Barking Riverside station. It's coming along nicely - substantially complete and linked to the Overground by viaduct - even if the surrounding land is still a grubby building site rather than attractive public realm.
Construction of the station has long been a pre-condition for unlocking 10,000 new homes close by, so can't come a moment too soon. But the train is about to be trumped by an even newer transport link and this time with a direct connection to central London rather than merely Barking and Gospel Oak. The riverbus is coming to Barking Riverside, and it's coming very soon.
At present Thames Clippers sail no further east than Woolwich but their intention is to extend services in peak hours and at weekends to a new pier off Barking Riverside. Commercially it makes absolutely no sense to sail an extra two miles downstream to a housing estate that's substantially unbuilt, but because Barking & Dagenham council are stumping up funding it's all systems go.
Barking Riverside will see half-hourly Thames Clipper services from 6.30am to 11am and 5pm to midnight on weekdays and all day at weekends. It'll be 20 minutes to North Greenwich, 40 minutes to Canary Wharf and just over an hour to Blackfriars. You could even stay on board and sail all the way to Battersea Power Station if you so choose, because there's nothing like operating a premature boat service between two incomplete housing developments. All of these changes appear in the summer timetable which kicks off on Tuesday... but I have my doubts the newly extended RB1 will be arriving quite so soon because the landing site isn't ready.
This time last month Barking Riverside pier was still in the Netherlands, having been constructed in the Ravestein shipyard in Deest. At the end of March it was towed across the North Sea in two parts - the pontoon and the 62 metre 'canting brow', which is the metal connection that allows the pier to float up and down with the tide. At the start of April these were attached to an existing coal jetty dating back to when this was all power station, and on Monday the first boats moored as part of early trials. It'd be a bit fast to welcome passengers eight days later, but this isn't Crossrail, they don't need six months of shuttling practice.
The pier is due to connect to Fielders Crescent just south of the new station but the path isn't finished yet. A wall of blue hoardings breaks to reveal a broad unsurfaced track leading down towards the river, alongside which minions are busy landscaping with turf and soil to ensure level access. You can't see the pier over a hump in the bank, indeed the only view is from the only spot in Barking Riverside that's actually riverside which is footpath 47. Uber plonked a route map here last year to whet residents' appetites, but the pier isn't where they put the sign, it's 200m upstream.
One day the pier will be at the heart of Barking Riverside but that day won't be in 2022, nor even 2025 at the rate construction's going. Instead the waterfront remains empty brownfield, as does most of the land behind which means nobody lives anywhere near. I walked from the point where the path starts and can confirm it's six minutes to the nearest block of flats on Mallards Road and seven minutes to the nearest block of flats on Fielders Crescent. Factor in the walk to the jetty, down the jetty and down the 'canting brow' and that'd be more like ten minutes. Essentially what Thames Clippers are doing is running a boat to an offloading point half a mile from the nearest potential customer.
It's a fairly desolate spot in daytime, but absolutely not somewhere I'd fancy being dropped off at three minutes past midnight. I'm guessing lampposts must be amongst the infrastructure yet to be installed along the connecting path, but even that'll struggle to make this a welcoming corner after dark. Fast forward and there'll be a station, shops and a wall of highrise apartments immediately alongside, which'll be fine, but for now it's very much an interstitial nomansland.
The chief reason for running the boat service must be as a flag to potential residents to say "It's OK, this isolated backwater housing estate is actually really well connected". I'd say the opening of an Overground station performs that task better, and we've no more than eight months to wait for that. The train'll also be cheaper and quicker than chugging on a boat round several Thames meanders. Let's test that out with a couple of sample commutes.
Barking Riverside → Canary Wharf Currently: bus to Barking, train/tube to Canary Wharf = 50 mins, £4.35 From Tuesday: boat to North Greenwich, tube to Canary Wharf = 40 mins, £6.45 From Tuesday: boat to Canary Wharf = 45 mins, £4.80 Later this year: Overground to Barking, train/tube to Canary Wharf = 35 mins, £2.70
Barking Riverside → Blackfriars Currently: bus to Barking, tube to Blackfriars = 60 mins, £5.95 From Tuesday: boat to Blackfriars = 65 mins, £8.70 Later this year: Overground to Barking, tube to Blackfriars = 45 mins, £4.30
The most ridiculous thing about the new Barking Riverside pier is that it's actually closer to Thamesmead than to any existing residents on the north bank of the river. For 50 years Thamesmead has languished without a railway station, or a pier for that matter, and suddenly upstart Barking Riverside is getting both. Imagine the transformative power a Thames Clipper service to Thamesmead might have, not just as a fast means of escape but also providing the very first cross-river link between Bexley and Barking & Dagenham. But that's the power of regeneration for you - the estate that's flogging new houses gets everything and the existing underserved residents get nothing.
Anyway, according to the timetable (and TfL's Journey Planner) Barking Riverside pier will welcome its first passengers at 6.25am on Tuesday morning, whereas according to Barking Riverside's Twitter feed it actually opens in May. Whichever is correct it'll be little more than a frippery to begin with, an expensive bauble located in a liminal space where nobody's quite built any houses yet. Best save your money and wait for the train.
