In an ideal world there’d be enough money to make everything accessible to everyone, of course. With all the other problems in the country though, is spending £5 million to make one station step-free really how we should be prioritising?
There must have been stats to determine that Streatham has the most people who can’t directly use steps, right…?
From TFL’s website:
“These ten stations, spread across London, have been identified using an approach focused on the benefits to customers, such as reducing journey times for those needing to use step-free access and reflecting issues that impact the delivery of step-free access such as the feasibility of new lifts, sufficient space for work to be carried out and the depth of each Tube station.
The approach has also been influenced by feedback from accessibility campaigners and TfL’s consultation on step-free access, which took place in 2021 and saw 5,500 responses. This feedback highlighted the importance of TfL addressing the gaps in areas that have few step-free stations.”
On a personal level, my dad lives near Streatham, and now his Parkinson’s is getting worse this will really make a difference to his ability to use public transport, so a very positive thing in my life!
It’s a shame that step free over here almost always means step free to the platform but no onto the train, so even at these step free stations people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters still need to arrange for a staff member to get a ramp out. Even probably 30 of the 40 Elizabeth Line stations aren’t step free onto the train. All because the standard platform and train heights here are different from each other with seemingly no plan to line them up anytime soon. The central Elizabeth line stations can be step free because only Elizabeth Line trains will go along that bit so they don’t need to follow national rail standards.
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In an ideal world there’d be enough money to make everything accessible to everyone, of course. With all the other problems in the country though, is spending £5 million to make one station step-free really how we should be prioritising?
There must have been stats to determine that Streatham has the most people who can’t directly use steps, right…?
From TFL’s website:
“These ten stations, spread across London, have been identified using an approach focused on the benefits to customers, such as reducing journey times for those needing to use step-free access and reflecting issues that impact the delivery of step-free access such as the feasibility of new lifts, sufficient space for work to be carried out and the depth of each Tube station.
The approach has also been influenced by feedback from accessibility campaigners and TfL’s consultation on step-free access, which took place in 2021 and saw 5,500 responses. This feedback highlighted the importance of TfL addressing the gaps in areas that have few step-free stations.”
On a personal level, my dad lives near Streatham, and now his Parkinson’s is getting worse this will really make a difference to his ability to use public transport, so a very positive thing in my life!
It’s a shame that step free over here almost always means step free to the platform but no onto the train, so even at these step free stations people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters still need to arrange for a staff member to get a ramp out. Even probably 30 of the 40 Elizabeth Line stations aren’t step free onto the train. All because the standard platform and train heights here are different from each other with seemingly no plan to line them up anytime soon. The central Elizabeth line stations can be step free because only Elizabeth Line trains will go along that bit so they don’t need to follow national rail standards.