"Water-borne Tube Line" For Thames

Yesterday, Andrew GIlligan spoke at the launch of a new report, "A Rate of Knots" which extols the virtues of investing in the Thames to reinvent it as a highway through Central London.

It urges the Mayor and TfL to get behind the river for improved transport outcomes at a fraction of the cost of other projects (Crossrail, for example). Angling for Boris' support, Gilligan offers him the 'big idea' he can be remembered for and on first glance, it certainly seems a more likely legacy than Boris Island. The vision is a waterborne tube line" which would run from Putney to Woolwich stopping at 20 piers.Gilligan's prose is passionately overblown: see how the idea "liberates hundreds of thousands of Londoners from their subterranean holes, travelling instead with the wind in their hair and the matchless spectacle of the world's greatest city before their eyes." But he's got a point - we feel childlike glee travelling on the Thames Clippers on deck out the back. In a more grown up frame of mind we've also enjoyed a civilised G&T en route to the O2.We'll read the report and chew it over. You can download it from the Policy Exchange website.