What can Londoners expect from new Thames tunnel? Lethal pollution

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2013/jan/24/london-thames-tunnel-pollution?intcmp=122


A view over Tower Bridge, London. Air pollution is already a killer in Tower Hamlets. Photograph: Jason Hawkes/Getty Images

What could possibly be wrong with a big new car tunnel under the Thames linking deprived east and south London? It would relieve congestion, allow people to cross London more easily, reduce journey times, encourage development, jobs, prosperity, flexibility, and even provide an alternative route between the Isle of Dogs with Greenwich, wouldn't it?

That's the premise of the mayor, Boris Johnson, and Transport for London (TfL) who, backed by construction and property companies, want to build a £1bn dual carriageway tunnel starting near the Dome on the south bank of the river and emerging on the north side in Tower Hamlets. TfL finishes consultation on the Silvertown crossing on 1 February and hopes to push the plan through next year.

But this week at a former church in the shadow of London's Canary Wharf's skyscrapers, I heard another side of this proposed road crossing story, and it was shocking.

Ian Mudway, a lecturer in respiratory toxicology and part of the environmental research group at King's College, London, and John Elliot, the head of a transport consultancy who has modelled London traffic for 30 years, told local people about what to expect from the tunnel, which could carry as many as 30,000 cars and lorries a day.