City Hall & the Cable Car

The glass building shaped like a cut crystal is London's City Hall, though it was never built to be one. Siemens put it up in 2012 as a showcase for green technology. In January 2022 the Mayor of London and the London Assembly moved in, leaving the rounded glass City Hall beside Tower Bridge to save money. The city's government now sits in the old docks, some ten kilometres east of Westminster, and that says something about which way London is growing. Next door is the cable car across the Thames. It opened in June 2012, just before the Olympics, and climbs to 90 metres above the river. It was sold as a new link for commuters. In October 2013 it emerged that only four people were using it regularly to get to work. Today it carries around one and a half million passengers a year, nearly all of them there for the view. A practical note before you go up. The cable car has its own fare, which you pay by tapping a contactless card or Oyster at the gate, or with a ticket from the machines. It closes in the evening and stops in strong wind. If it is not running, take the DLR one stop from Royal Victoria station, just beside you, to Canning Town, and then the Jubilee line one stop to North Greenwich, next to the O2. It takes about fifteen minutes, and the tour picks up again from there.