As an East London resident I've received a 20-page booklet through my letterbox about the opening of the SilvertownTunnel in April. If you didn't get a booklet you can download one here.
I like the graphics. I hate the maps.
Eight pages are given over to information for drivers, which makes sense given most of the tunnel's users will be drivers. The eight pages are mostly about what you have to pay and whether you have to pay it. You might therefore expect that one of the maps in the booklet would be aimed at drivers. Not so. There is such a map, it's on the TfL website and you can see it here. But it never made it into the booklet because someone thought two maps aimed at bus passengers and cyclists would be sufficient.
This is the bus map which spans pages 4 and 5, and I fear TfL's Let's Make This Bus Map Unnecessarily Complicated department has been at it again.
It shows the three routes which make up TfL's commitment to running 21 buses an hour through the two tunnels. One is the existing 108 through the Blackwall Tunnel, one is the extended 129 and one is the new Superloop SL4, both of which will use the Silvertown Tunnel.
As a bus passenger what I really what to know is where these buses will stop. Instead the map chooses to shows all the roads these buses will serve, because TfL's LMTBMUC department is obsessed with routes rather than stops.
• I don't care which bore of the Blackwall Tunnel the 108 will use, nor all the ridiculous twiddles the 108 and 129 have to make to enter the bus station at North Greenwich. I might care that the 108 makes several extra stops northbound on its detour to the tunnel but the map doesn't show where they are, nor does it have arrows to show which way the loop goes.
• I don't care about the twiddles on the 129 either, whereas I would really like to know where the first stop beyond the tunnel is going to be and how far it'll be from anywhere useful. I'd also quite like to know where the 129 goes next but the next four miles through Newham are not shown, only a box saying that the route terminates at Great Eastern Quay. I bet most people have no idea where that is and the booklet doesn't enlighten them.
• I can see where the SL4 runs but because it's a limited stop route I really need to know where I can catch it, and on that there's nothing. That's key because on the north side of the tunnel it won't stop anywhere in Newham, only in Tower Hamlets, and heading south it won't drop anyone off in North Greenwich, only two miles away up the A2. The next page of the booklet does at least say "Express service stopping in key town centres between Westferry Circus in Canary Wharf to Grove Park via Silvertown Tunnel". But it doesn't say what those key town centres will be, nor does it mention the three-mile non-stop section, and you're not going to attract any passengers like that.
As for the cycle shuttle map on page 16, it too is obsessed with routes instead of stops.
Cyclists don't care what ridiculous one-way circuits the shuttle bus has to make, they only need to know where to board and where it'll drop them off. The red blobs alas get somewhat lost amid the red lines.
The map also shows the paucity of well-connected cycleways hereabouts. It also shows that the northern shuttle stop won't be alongside a segregated cycleway, you'll have to follow "shared pedestrian/cycle routes" to reach one. A special slow handclap to whoever added a box showing a link "to Future Morden Wharf Development", a route no cyclist will be taking in the next five years.
What is it with TfL and overcomplicated underinformative maps? Drivers, bus passengers and cyclists who might use the Silvertown Tunnel would really like to know.
