About 500,000 penalty tickets have been issued to motorists for failing to pay the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnel tolls.
London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan introduced the charges – £4 per crossing at peak times and £1.50 during other charging hours – six months ago as a way of restricting traffic flows while generating revenue to repay the £2.2bn cost of building the Silvertown tunnel.
The charges began when the Silvertown tunnel opened on April 7 – meaning drivers had to pay to use the nearby Blackwall tunnel for the first time in more than 120 years.
However TfL sent drivers a warning letter rather than a £180 fine for the next few weeks under a “grace period” – with penalty charge notices (PCNs) not being issued until April 30.
Now it has emerged that about 100,000 penalties a month have been issued to drivers who failed to pay the levy – about half of them to people living outside London.
TfL said the fines had been issued to the owners of 281,242 vehicles - meaning some drivers will have incurred multiple penalty tickets.
TfL has received £401m in income from road and tunnel charges since April – a whopping £64m more than expected, though this is said to be “predominately” the result of higher Ulez enforcement income rather than tunnel fines.
According to a freedom of information response, TfL issued a total of 472,141 PCNs by August 16th to drivers who failed to pay the tunnel toll.
It is not known how much has been recouped in fines but the PCNs have a maximum face value of almost £85m, though drivers get a 50 per cent reduction on the £180 cost if they pay within 14 days.
Susan Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives, who was herself fined after being caught in confusion over TfL’s AutoPay system, described the numbers as “eye-watering”.
She told The Standard: “The war on motorists is not dead – certainly not in Sadiq Khan’s London.
“To make more than £400m from motorists at a time when the cost of living is sky-high is shameful. The signage could be so much better.
“Sadiq Khan will not be happy until all cars and vehicles are off London’s roads.”
About 230,000 of the tickets were issued to vehicles registered to a London address and 237,000 to vehicles registered outside the capital.
The Silvertown tunnel links the Greenwich peninsula with the Royal Docks and Canning Town on the north side of the river and provides an alternative route under the Thames.
It was introduced by the mayor to ease chronic congestion at the Blackwall tunnel.
However, there are concerns that the signage on approach roads to the tunnels does not make it clear to motorists that tolls have to be paid.
The tunnels are only free to use between 10pm and 6am.
The £4 peak rate – which applies to both tunnels - is charged on weekdays for northbound journeys between 6am and 10am, and for southbound journeys between 4pm to 7pm southbound.
Journeys at other times outside of the 10pm-6am free window cost £1.50 – but this off-peak rate is only available to drivers who have registered their vehicles and bank details in advance with TfL’s AutoPay system.
A finance report to the TfL board last week said income was £64m higher than budget, “mainly from higher roads enforcement income from Ulez and the Silvertown tunnel”.
TfL said that in June almost 88 per cent of drivers paid the charge.
A TfL spokesperson said: “The Silvertown tunnel, supported by user charges, is already reducing congestion around the Blackwall tunnel, improving journey times, and supporting thousands of Londoners to cross the river using public transport.
“The vast majority of drivers are already complying with the new charges, following a comprehensive customer information campaign across multiple channels to raise awareness of the charges and options – such as Autopay – that are available to users, complemented by the clear road signage on the network itself.
“The income from these charges and any enforcement activity used for the operation, maintenance, and repayment costs for the tunnels with any surplus reinvested back into the wider public transport network.”
Drivers have until midnight on the third day after their journey to pay the toll. More than 3.3 million vehicles are now signed up for TfL Auto Pay.
“The easiest way to avoid receiving a PCN is by signing up to TfL Auto Pay, which also lets drivers access lower off-peak charges,” the TfL spokesperson said.
TfL’s first analysis of the impact of the Silvertown tunnel, and the charges at Blackwall, found that drivers heading north towards the Blackwall Tunnel were averaging 30mph during the morning rush hour – three times quicker than before the Silvertown tunnel opened.
The analysis found that about 91,000 vehicles used the tunnels on a typical weekday – about 69,000 at the Blackwall tunnel and 22,000 at Silvertown. This was five per cent lower than before Silvertown opened.
But the amount of cross-river traffic in east and south-east London increased at weekends – and during the week at the Rotherhithe tunnel and Woolwich Ferry, both of which remained free to use.
The Silvertown tunnel is a twin-bore tunnel that is much larger than the Blackwall tunnel - meaning it can be used by HGVs. It is also the route of the SL4 Superloop bus that links Canary Wharf and Grove Park. The SL4 is free to use for the first year.
The Stop Silvertown Tunnel Traffic and Pollution campaign said: “We believe that the Silvertown tunnel should have been repurposed for buses, cycling and active travel only.
“Bus journeys in London fell by 37 million last year. If the Silvertown tunnel is not yet going to be repurposed for cycling and active travel, these many millions that are being generated by fines and road charging should be used to incentivise bus use and active travel.
“For example a much needed new cross-river cycling and walking bridge in East London, and an extension of the age of free bus use to 22, as in Scotland.”
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