It's been a month now since I started reporting daily on London's first PPP-funded tube station renovation project. It's been a month of compelling drama as blue walls have suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and a month of high tension as those blue walls have occasionally disappeared again into thin air. I've transferred the whole story into this comments box in case you feel the need to catch up on the full details before reading on. Then, yesterday, something even more thrilling happened. Elsie got an email about it last week, but the first any of us locals knew came when details were posted on a board at the station on Tuesday afternoon.
Meet our Managers events give our customers the chance to raise their concerns and air their views about the work we are carrying out by asking our Managers questions. It also enables us to receive feedback about general Underground matters, from a cross-section of the public. The event will be held at Bow Road Station on Wednesday, 10 March 2004 between 1600 and 1900.
Needless to say I was very excited by this opportunity to discover more about my adopted pet station. Imagine my joy at meeting the people who would be shaping the future of this Grade II listed building. I could ask them all sorts of questions, not just about blue walls but also about what they were planning to do, to what, and when. Would we finally be getting a train display indicator that would tell us how far away the next three trains were, not just that the next train was 45 seconds away? I have an insatiable blog audience who need to be told, you see.
I arrived at Bow Road station last night around 6pm, crushed aboard a packed District Line train. I wove my way out of the carriage onto the platform and looked around. Paint continued to peel off the walls, the ceilings and all other available surfaces. Of 'the Managers' there was as yet no sign. I joined the home-bound tide of commuters and swept up the stairs, round the corner and into the narrow ticket hall. There beyond the barriers stood a massed gathering of smiling people holding leaflets, much as a group of evangelicals might stand poised with tracts ready to thrust into the hands of passing unbelievers. There was also a trestle table piled high with goodies, but no signs whatsoever that might have told travellers who these people were or what they were doing standing there.
I stopped for a closer look at the table and its contents. There were more leaflets, a pile of uncompleted questionnaires and a small number of stubby light blue pencils stamped with a London Underground logo. There were also some small flat round objects that might have been either pencil sharpeners or key fobs, of the sort that eight-year-old girls buy in museum shops on school trips. I only managed a quick look before one of the people standing nearby, I suspect not a manager, tempted me away from the table by offering me a leaflet. There was no follow-up, no attempt at feedback, not even a free pencil, not for anyone. Within seconds I was outside the station, in front of the legendary blue wall, wondering if there had in fact been any managers to meet at all. My views had not been aired. I was a very cross section of the public.
The leaflet announced that the modernisation of Bow Road station would finally begin next Monday. Workmen will have the station to themselves between 10pm and 6am every day until further notice, i.e early next year, and the rest of us can jolly well walk home from Mile End or get the bus. Oh, and we shouldn't touch our Oystercards on the reader when using the bus or it'll accidentally charge us extra, we should wave our cards at the driver instead. Such is progress. But we are due to be getting:
• upgraded platforms, ticket hall, station entrance, passageways and stairs (and trains? some trains that run on time would be nice)
• all floor, wall and ceiling finishes are either being repaired or replaced (this wrinkly centenarian station needs one hell of a facelift)
• as this station is a Grade 2 listed building, all the heritage features are being restored (I wonder if that includes all the chewing gum)
• installation of customer help points (maybe that's what all the blue pencils were for)
• improved CCTV (cor, wouldn't a webcam be exciting?)
• installation of induction loops for the hard of hearing (Mind the gap. I said, MIND THE GAP!)
• better lighting and new signage (ladies and gentlemen, this way to the replacement bus service)
Bow Road station: Meet our Managers
