Tube geek/watch (9)Inaccessiblity
The Underground network is a nightmare for disabled passengers. Very few stations have step-free access from street level and, even if you can get down to the platforms, even fewer allow you to change lines. Victorian planners weren't well known for their adherence to accessibility legislation and so the older deeper lines are the worst. It's better on the Jubilee line extension (and Docklands Light Railway) where 100% of stations have lift access, but if you venture outside East London you can expect your wheels to be grounded. Transport for London have very helpfully provided a tube access map that shows just how bad the problem is. The map even shows stations with step-free access in one direction only so that, for example, you can depart Amersham station on the Metropolitan line but you can never get home again. Brilliant. You'll find a clearer, and therefore scarier, version of the map here.
Below is the diamond geezer tubegeek guide to line-by-line accessibility. I've calculated the number of possible return journeys on each line and what percentage of those return journeys are accessible in a wheelchair. It makes for grim reading.
You'd expect the Jubilee line to be top of this list, but who'd have thought that the ancient District line would be second. The green line still has less than 4% of its possible journeys with step-free access though, which is still rubbish. Then there are three lines where only one accessible journey is possible - the East London line (Canada Water → New Cross), the Bakerloo line (Harrow & Wealdstone → Willesden Junction) and the Circle line (Westminster → Liverpool Street) - and two more lines with zero accessibility. You've probably never seen a wheelchair on the tube, and this is why.
Thank goodness that additional journeys are possible if you change lines. For example, how can a wheelchair-bound passenger travel by tube from Tottenham Hale to Liverpool Street? Simple. Take any Victoria line train to Finsbury Park, then cross to the southbound Piccadilly line platform and take a train to Green Park. Make your way to the Jubilee line (via two lifts and an extra-long passenger walkway), then it's one stop to Westminster where you ascend to the Circle/District line platforms and wait for a Circle line train (clockwise only) to take you round to Liverpool Street. The total number of stations on this journey is 31, whereas an able bodied passenger could do it in 8.
Transport for London have an obligation under the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) to make all their stations and trains fully accessible. Currently only 40 out of 275 stations meet this standard, and even then there might be a scary gap between the train and the platform as well as a nigh-impossible step up or down of up to 12 inches. Only a few key stations will be added to the step-free list over the next 20 years (Balham, you're due in 2024), for which you can blame poor funding and ancient infrastructure. The best solution for wheelchair users appears to be to use the bus network instead, 100% of which will be accessible within the next two years (sob, Routemasters, sob). Or maybe TfL should just buy everyone a taxi.
Tube geek/watch (9) Inaccessiblity
