London's Proposed New Pedestrian-Cyclist Bridge Is Shockingly Sensible

When a proposal for a new bridge across the Thames was launched in London this week, many were taken aback. The bridge would span the river not in Central London but in the city’s Eastern Docklands and be open only to pedestrians and cyclists but capable of allowing tall ships to pass through. But the real surprise element is that, contrary to expectations developed over the past few years, the proposal is actually great.

London has fielded some pretty silly bridge proposals recently. First there was the Garden Bridge, a plan for a park strung across the river that initially sounded delightful but whose charm soon faded. Then there was the competition to design a pedestrian bridge to cross the Thames near the new U.S. embassy, which is currently under construction. The competition attracted a host of designs so flashy that one studio was able to enter a spoof concept without standing out as notably worse. All this happened following the relative failure of the Emirates Air Line, a gondola that crosses the river at a poorly chosen point in East London where daily use has been extremely low.