A major contribution to the debate over the closure of Hammersmith Bridge to motor vehicles has just been published by Nick Maini, a local resident who crosses Hammersmith Bridge daily. This blog has been welcomed by many on different sides of the argument about what should happen and shows the huge importance of community participation in helping to tease out and deliver solutions in the local area. Thank you to Nick for giving 20/20 Visions permission to publish this short introduction and a link to the article.
This blog by Nick Maini (link below) is a comprehensive analysis of Hammersmith Bridge, the West London Victorian suspension bridge that’s been closed to vehicles for six years. Following much political and community debate, and various proposed solutions, stabilisation work has been undertaken and the bridge reopened as a pedestrian and cycling bridge in spring 2025. There is still no decision or funding agreement regarding its long term future.
The article traces how the original bridge was rebuilt in just four years by the Victorians but has so far defied all modern attempts at repair, with restoration costs now estimated at £250m and suggested timelines stretching beyond a decade.
The findings may be seem as counterintuitive: when the bridge closed in 2019, Transport for London predicted chaos from 25,000 daily vehicles. Instead, traffic decreased, local spending increased, and 9,000 journeys simply evaporated, replaced by cycling and walking. Whilst genuine hardship exists for those who’ve lost bus services, the evidence suggests the real problem isn’t restoring vehicle capacity but providing targeted public transport.
The article presents an alternative: autonomous electric pods costing £10m rather than £250m, operating within the stabilised bridge’s 3-tonne weight limit. Fully designed and costed by climate charity Possible.
The piece concludes by positioning this failure as symptomatic of Britain’s broader infrastructure paralysis, where every actor can block decisions but none can compel action.
Read the blog here: https://nickmaini.substack.com/p/hammersmith-bridge