They've been making a mess of the Greenwich Foot tunnel - unscheduled closures, lift break downs. Currently it's shut on weekday nights, the lifts are not working and the stairs, with wooden partitions, are now too narrow for cyclists to pass groups of pedestrians or other cyclists lugging their bike the other way so you have to use the landings as passing points.
One Sunday morning a few weeks ago I set off from Deptford to Rainham, found the tunnel shut (It's Health and Safety Gone Fishing, I tells yer...), thought, no matter, I'll take the Woolwich Ferry. Got there and found that the ferry does not operate until 11am and the Woolwich Foot tunnel is closed anyway. I ended up having to cycle to Dartford and get the highways people to ferry me through the tunnel - which was fun in its own right but definitely nowhere near where I wanted to be.
Because I don't consider the Rotherhithe Tunnel cyclable (it's one of those things that most cyclists try once and then say ''never again'') there was no crossing between Tower Bridge and the Dartford Crossing. That makes the river rather difficult terrain.
Normally the ferry's great...hundreds of cars and lorries all backed up for hours and cyclists saunter up and go straight to the front of the ferry and they get to be first off on the other bank.
