If there’s one thing to sink the heart it’s the announcement of a station upgrade programme on the Underground. I accept, grudgingly, the installation of step-free access, which makes the Tube an option for anyone on a walking frame or wheelchair or hauling pushchairs and suitcases. To date 94 of its 272 Tube stations are step free, but although it’s trying to bolster the number, it’s not going to have half of those stations accessible by 2030.
Every other upgrade means just one thing: station or platform closures. There is nothing, but nothing, more disgruntling than to find that your one way of getting to work is off-limits for months on end. No one, for instance, disputes the desirability of working escalators for deep platforms – fancy climbing up from the Elizabeth line? – but is it necessary to close entire stations for this purpose?
The Cutty Sark station at Greenwich was closed for ten whole months so that all four of the escalators could be replaced. But wasn’t it possible to keep one in each direction working so that the men in high-vis jackets could work on the others? Or how about ensuring that there is an actual static staircase in every station so if the escalators don’t work, we can painfully make our way up or down them? Even stationary escalators – oddly discombobulating to use – would be better than a closed station. In these cases, all TfL needs to do is put up a really big notice at the entrance to say that escalators are out of action, and if you really want to climb down to the platform, why, it’s up to you. Young blokes may not mind; oldies can take alternative routes. Caveat viator.
Some Tube stations will 'never' have step-free access
Sir Sadiq Khan said it will “never be the case” that every Tube station in London will have step-free access, when quizzed a Mayor’s Question Time in 2025.
The mayor suggested this was due to the Victorian design of some of them, which makes retrofitting lifts either impossible or extremely expensive.
My own nearest station, Baron’s Court, is out of action for unspecified platform improvements on the eastbound platform for five whole months. That means my normal route to work has been closed off, and it’s insanely annoying. There was nothing wrong from a merely aesthetic point of view with the platform; it was one of the old fashioned sort, in an old fashioned but attractive station. I have no idea what the boys in hard hats are up to, but the certainty is that it’ll cost tens of millions of pounds. How about using that on signal improvements instead?
What TfL, with its cavalier approach to whole or partial station closures needs to bear in mind is that almost anything is better than closing stations, or half stations. It throws the plans, the journeys, of tens of thousands of people daily into disarray. There is no excuse for any upgrade to stations that aren’t to do with safety; certainly none that involve merely cosmetic improvements. Perhaps they might actually ask station users what they would prefer: new signage, or a working station? (And may I bet on the outcome?)
There is one exception I can think of: South Kensington, which was designed for genteel visitors to the museums and now finds itself funnelling hundreds of thousands of overseas visitors and school trips to the National History Museum and V&A. It actually feels unsafe at rush-hour. But few other stations are so palpably overcrowded.
For everywhere else, the rule should be: leave stations well alone. They don’t need improvements or upgrades if they’re simply a little shabby. If you have tens of millions to spare, keep fares down. That would be actually welcome.
