What’s the Deal with the Hammersmith Flyunder?

The below sketched plans, while looking like the work of a six year old, is good news for the long sought after Hammersmith ‘Flyunder’. But how has the £1billion idea been received?

 

Replacing the 50 year old flyover is the name of the game. Why? Escalating maintenance costs for the ageing mega structure is causing a headache for Hammersmith and Fulham council. Let alone the carbon emissions and onslaught of health problems associated. HighwaysIndustry.Com even ran a feature to mark the flyovers 50th birthday highlighting its success and growing problems, called Close to Collapse: The Story of the Hammersmith Flyover.

 

FactFlyunder: What you need to know:

  -   Three alternative tunnels are on the menu, varying from 1 mile to 2.5 miles

  -    Cost will be between £218million to £1.7billion, depending on length

  -    £1billion worth of funding can be freed up from sold land

  -    Construction could be completed within three years

  -    As owners and managers of the A4, TFL would have to lead the next stage of the project

Using the imagination of nine local architects known as the West London Link, the council have been lobbying hard to make this the best idea of 2014.

 

Councillors have been asking the public to challenge the old status quo; Councillor Nicholas Botterill said: "The Hammersmith Flyover is a hangover from another era that should never be repeated. Hammersmith and Fulham is uniting behind a tunnel replacement, or flyunder, as it would dramatically improve the quality of life for thousands of west Londoners and be a game changer for Hammersmith town centre."

 

Council leader Nicholas Botterill even referred to the flyover as ‘Hammersmith’s Berlin Wall’. Through online surveys and town centre tents, the council have been garnering interest and anger for the new proposed tunnel.

Some reactions from members of the public include:

 

Paddy: ‘So we are spending over £14B on Crossrail so that someone in Maidenhead can get to Bond St in about 40 minutes then want to spend billions more so someone in Maidenhead can drive down the M4 to get to London as well? If someone along the M4 wants to get into central London then they should be encouraged to use Crossrail, particularly given it will almost definitely be extended to Reading.’

 

Curwena: ‘I really hope this starts in Chiswick and not Hammersmith. it would be such a missed opportunity if they do the minimum possible. so much of west London is divided in 2 and it is time to do it all at once and get rid of the A4 and restore the land to the way it was in the 1940''s.’

 

Xenia: ‘Great idea. If you see how the A86 has transformed the west of Paris, the benefits for residents and users is tremendous. La Defense is built over the tunnel, which regenerated successfully the local area. The idea was such a success that many years later, the tunnel was extended further west. There are just enough exit/access points to make it work for everyone but not too many. Bring it on!’

 

A council poll found that 89% of respondents favoured some kind of tunnel replacement.

Last week Mayor of London Boris Johnson threw his weight behind the idea calling it a ‘brilliant’ scheme. He tackled any doubts that have arisen on the LBC Talk Radio show saying: “A presentation came in from H&F. They’ve been working for months on this idea of creating a new town centre in H&F. We’ve been listening to this for months and months thinking come off it this is never going to work and actually it is brilliant. It adds up.

 

“It’s a most fantastic scheme. We’re going to tunnelise the flyover. What was interesting was even the hardened Transport for London (TfL) engineers looked at all this – they’ve been very sceptical – and they thought it was a great scheme.”

 

Even local comedian Bill Bailey Attended the Transport Select Committee and gave his two cents. He said: "I've lived in Hammersmith for 30 years and the traffic needs to be addressed. A flyunder would have enormous benefits for not just traffic but also for a much improved town centre environment.

 

“While the artist impressions look very nice, they don't seem to reflect the reality of what’s already there around the tunnel approaches. The "View looking west towards the Ark and Novotel" looks to be far wider that it really is; and vanished are missing an entire block of flats (Linacre Court) & the West London County Court. Makes one wonder about the validity of the rest of the claims for the project...

“I suspect that, far from rolling green spaces, we''ll find towering office blocks and luxury apartments will actually be filling the picture - where else is the funding going to come from?”