TfL has announced that bus trips on routes 129 and SL4, which will use the Silvertown Tunnel when it opens in April, will be free for a year after that. As will trips on the 108, which goes through the Blackwall Tunnel further up the river. On their website, TfL state that:

“For at least 12 months from the tunnel opening, local residents will benefit from free pay as you go fares on the new cross-river bus routes serving Greenwich, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.

These routes include the new Superloop SL4 and route 129, which will go through the Silvertown Tunnel, and route 108 through the Blackwall Tunnel.”

We congratulate TfL on realising the value of fare-free travel. And we call for it to be extended, from these three bus routes, to across the whole of London’s public transport network. The principle of free transport reducing car journeys has been vindicated by this decision.

Let’s not only use free public transport just as a sticking-plaster on the wounds caused by the polluting Silvertown Tunnel project.  Let’s use free public transport to make London a cleaner, healthier more equal city all round.

Published: 24 January 2025.