The 116-year-old bridge has been, for the first month of its set closure, the topic of huge annoyance and collisions of whether works should have occurred during lockdown or now in the slow yet promising return to reality.

 

2 months into the supposed ‘critical maintenance’ and we still see huge levels of congestion on Vauxhall Bridge, the epicenter of the 3 forms of transport in London: train, tube, and the bus has been balancing on the ever loosening tight rope; bound to break at any second.

 

With 50,533 vehicles passing through each day in accordance to 2004 figures, it is clearly unimaginable the huge surge in cars the bridge now faces every day. The idea of just walkers and cyclists, as well as southbound buses and coaches being allowed to go through, is enough to cause some frowning brows amongst people.

Huge delays with the addition of fewer buses during the night have caused our night workers a humongous hill to face. The average bus ride to Trafalgar Square on the 87 would have taken 10 minutes but the red tape of diversions make this once humble journey into a 20-minute journey.

With the stress of upcoming additions of apartments on Wandsworth Road, companies such as Multiplex and JRL Group, tenants have seen gridlocked cars, construction trucks, bikes fighting through the narrowed road. Over 100 complaints of noise pollution leading to windows having to be closed from both noise and the increasing percentage of soot.

A nightshift cleaner (who has chosen to stay unknown), used to work near Trafalgar Square claims her journey home from work took just over “35 minutes” with the bus “swindling through the now empty streets with just {herself} and a man upstairs”.

As a result of the further restrictions due to COVID measures in central London, many workers have lost their maintenance jobs, but the remaining few, have noticed the huge problems with bus times. The London Bus App has been creating problems for travelers, buses never arriving or simply huge intervals between buses, this leads to more stretches of time wasted in order to get home.

Vauxhall Bridge is to be opened next month with the high hopes of peace and quiet on the now battle zone roads. With later re-opening of Hammersmith Bridge and local roads with new bike lanes.