Friday 9 October 2009

Transport for (non-disabled) London

Tube LiesTfL have long lied about the reconstruction of Shepherd's Bush Station. I, like many other Bushers, had to endure months of walking to White City in the freezing cold as they knocked down the old station in order to build the new one that was part of the deal with Westfield. As we were trudging towards the station one of the things that we were promised was a station fit - and acessible - for all.

As I know from personal experience however, TfL are rarely to be trusted. And sure enough before the new station was opened it was revealed that TfL had "discovered" a major engineering reason why a lift could not be installed without huge expense. I am not an engineer but it strikes me that completely levelling a station and building it from new does leave quite a lot of scope for the installation of a lift.

Hammersmith And Fulham Action on Disability, HAFAD, have been making a noise about this today. Well done to them, and shame on both TfL for being the toe rags that they are and on the council for not forcing either Westfield or TfL to spend what was necessary to ensure that those of us who happen either to be disabled now or who will be in the future can actually use this new station.

1 comment:

  1. [...] may remember, prior to our tube station being closed for months, we were promised among other things a fully accessible tube. This was in keeping with TfL’s laudable efforts to make the system as accessible to disabled [...]

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