Limehouse Link tunnel
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Location | London Docklands |
| Coordinates | 51°30′40″N 0°01′59″W / 51.511°N 0.033°WCoordinates: 51°30′40″N 0°01′59″W / 51.511°N 0.033°W |
| Status | Active |
| Route | A1203 road |
| Operation | |
| Work begun | 1989 |
| Opened | 1993 |
| Operator | Transport for London |
| Technical | |
| Operating speed | 30mph |
The Limehouse Link tunnel is a 1.1 mile long tunnel in the Limehouse area of east London on the A1203 road which links the northern approach of Tower Bridge with a point just north of Canary Wharf in London Docklands. Built between 1989 and 1993 at a cost of £293 million it is currently (as of June 2011) the most expensive road scheme in Britain per mile, working out at £50,500 per foot at 2011 prices. It is the second largest non-estuarial road tunnel in the UK, after the Hindhead Tunnel in Surrey.
During the early 1980s, it was clear that the existing road infrastructure serving the Isle of Dogs development zone had no spare capacity, and the Limehouse Link formed the western part of improvements proposed by the London Docklands Development Corporation. Planning started in 1986, the designers were the Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners. The design of the tunnel approaches and portal buildings was carried out by Anthony Meats and Rooney O'Carroll Architects as part of an overall consultancy on the LDDC highway infrastructure programme. Construction began in November 1989 and the tunnel project was officially opened in May 1993. At the time it was the second biggest engineering project in Europe after the Channel Tunnel.
Balfour Beatty and Amec formed a joint venture to build the tunnel. Called 'Balfour Beatty Fairclough Joint Venture' The project involved 5 million man hours over 193 weeks.
The tunnel is actually twin parallel tunnels built by the cut-and-cover method, with the tunnels under waterways built bottom-up behind temporary cofferdam walls. The western portal of the tunnel is at the eastern end of The Highway (A1203), just east of its junction with Butcher Row. The Highway runs along the line of the Rotherhithe Tunnel for a short distance; the northern portal of that tunnel lies just north of the Link tunnel entrance. Heading east, the tunnel passes under the north side of Limehouse Basin, turns south-east to pass underneath Limekiln Dock and Dundee Wharf close to the embankment walls of the River Thames before turning north-east under Westferry Road. The eastern portal to the tunnel, emerging onto the A1261 Aspen Way, is just north of the Canary Wharf development, near West India Quay DLR station. Through the Blackwall area, the eastern extremity of Aspen Way includes a flyover crossing of a roundabout close to the line of the twin tunnels of the Blackwall Tunnel.
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