So where does all the traffic go when a bridge is closed? It goes to the neighbouring bridges, right?
Well, the answer is: NO.
Hammersmith Bridge's neighbouring road bridges are Putney Bridge (to the east) and Chiswick Bridge (to the west). They'll be familiar to viewers of the annual Boat Races between Oxford and Cambridge as being near the start and finish, respectively.
Before Hammersmith Bridge was closed in 2019, all three bridges - Putney, Hammersmith and Chiswick - were pretty busy with traffic. At times, they could grind to a standstill.
Hammersmith Bridge was carrying around 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles a day (depending on which sources you look at), so once the bridge was shut to traffic, you'd expect roughly 10,000 extra cars on each of its neighbours. (After all, as I was regularly told, "the traffic has to go somewhere".)
However, figures from TfL, in response to a 2025 Freedom of Information request from Tim Lennon, show that, after a period of settling down, traffic levels on both Putney and Chiswick bridges have fallen, as these graphs (by Tom Pike) show.
Change in motor vehicle numbers across neighbouring bridges
Change in vehicle numbers on neighbouring bridges
Perhaps even more surprisingly, traffic on the next bridges in each direction - Wandsworth (to the east) and Kew (to the west) have fallen as well.
So the effect of closing Hammersmith Bridge has been to reduce the amount of traffic on four other bridges! Why would anyone want to bring cars back?
Next: Traffic evaporation →
