Disabled passenger hits out at new Tube stations lifts
MAN SAYS THEY WERE NOT BIG ENOUGH TO ROTATE WHEELCHAIR
EXCITED train-loving crowds gathered together last week as Londoners got two sparkling new additions to the Northern Line.
The much-awaited new underground stations, Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms, promised 25,000 new jobs, double-height ceilings and more space for commuters with a £1.1 billion price tag.
However, one disabled Londoner had just one hope – for the new stations to be accessible for wheelchair users. He was left disappointed.
Alan Benson, a disability and transport campaigner from London, took to the new underground stations as soon as they opened to see how accessible they were.
He said: “Less than 40% of underground stations are step-free, so wheelchair users can’t access most of it. So for us, brand new accessible stations are quite exciting.
“It opens up bits of London that, otherwise, I can’t really get to.
“People will tell you that the Tube is 100 years old, and wasn’t designed for accessibility.
“So you forgive them when it’s an ‘old station.’
“They can only put lifts in at certain places, and of certain sizes.
“But with two brand new stations costing £1.1 billion, there’s no reason you can’t make those fully accessible.”
Alan said he felt let down once he arrived at Battersea Power Station.
“The thing that’s really disappointing,” he said, “is the size of the lifts.”
The lift was not big enough for Alan to rotate or move his wheelchair, meaning he can only reverse backwards out of it.
It was such a simple requirement for a lift for disabled users that he could not believe the lift was not designed to be big enough.
He said on Twitter that the lift felt like a “squeezed-in afterthought”, adding that it will only get worse as the station gets busier.
Even more frustrating was that the lift at Nine Elms was big enough for his wheelchair.
“So why couldn’t they get it right at Battersea?” he asked.
Alan also noted that the emergency buttons in the lift were too high for him to press, and the doors closed too quickly to get his wheelchair out.
“Any decent access professional going around the station before it opened would have spotted it in a heartbeat,” he said.
“And any wheelchair user at the design stage would have spotted that immediately.”
Alan feels that the only way to improve accessibility is to involve disabled people in the process from the very start, including the early design stages.
Martin Gosling, Northern Line extension project director, said: “We’re sorry to hear of concerns around accessibility at our two new step-free stations, Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station, and are urgently addressing the feedback as making travel easier for Londoners with accessibility needs is one of our top priorities.
“We are making changes to ensure the lift doors stay open for longer and are reviewing signage across the stations.
“We know how important step-free access is, so we installed multiple lifts at Battersea Power Station to ensure there was always one available in the event that a lift is taken out of service.
“We’re sorry we didn’t get things right the first time but would like to reassure our customers that we’re taking feedback on board and are working hard to make improvements.”
With two brand new stations costing £1.1bn, there’s no reason you can’t make those fully accessible. Alan Benson