Forgive me, while there's a tube strike on, for looking ahead to next weekend's network closures. But I'd like to focus today on my nearly-local station, Mile End, which is a transport node in sore need of interior upgrade. The station's a real mess inside, and has been for a couple of years, because all the tiles were ripped down immediately before Metronet went bust. There's been no money to replace the tiles since, and the end result is pig-uglyplatforms and grim-looking passageways. But a few tentative tiles have now materialised on various boarded-up pillars, and this month work has finally begun on renovating the ticket hall. It's this latter activity which requires part of the station to be closed over several weekends.
So, the situation is this. The entrance to Mile End station will be closed over the weekends 6/7 June, 13/14 June and 27/28 June. Down below, the station will still be open to allow passengers to change lines.
Simple, you'd have thought. But not to TfL, who've been busy hiding away different chunks of this information like a jigsaw in the hope that passengers might be able to piece them all together and work out what's going on. Where shall we start?
1) Let's start on the TfL live travel news webpage. Check the tab for planned engineering works this weekend and see if you can spot anything. Central line good service, District line good service. Nothing obvious there. But click on the 'tube stations' tab to the left of the map and you might deduce that something's up. Mile End's not on the list of closed stations, but it is there under 'station maintenance'. Normally this list is ignorable, detailing nothing more serious than out-of-work escalators and reduced lift services. This time, however, it bears essential news for the residents of western E3:
Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 June, open for interchange, only. Passengers are not able to exit or enter the station. The nearest alternative stations are Bow Road, Stepney Green, Bethnal Green and Stratford. The ticket office is closed.
That's very useful information, but it's incredibly well hidden and took three clicks to find. So let's assume that nobody's going to notice it.
2) Secondly then, TfL's weekly Weekend line and station closures email. It comes round every Wednesday, to subscribers only, and this week's has full details of the Mile End closure. Doesn't it?
Central line: Mile End station is available to change between the District and Hammersmith & City lines only. There is no entry or exit from the station. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
Sounds good, but the first sentence is actually wrong, as this subsequent entry indicates.
Hammersmith & City line: There is no service on the entire line due to track replacement work. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
The Hammersmith and City line is one of two to be completely closed this weekend, so all that talk of Mile End being "available to change between the District and Hammersmith & City lines only" was untrue. Here's the mistake repeated for good measure.
District line: Mile End station is available to change between the Central and Hammersmith & City lines only. There is no entry or exit from the station. For further details and alternative routes, please click here.
And what happens if you click on the link for further details and alternative routes. Nothing in any way helpful, as it turns out. You get a whopping great page of pdf, but all it actually says is this:
Mile End station is undergoing improvement work. No entry or exit. The station is open for interchange between lines only. Please use alternative bus and walking routes where possible. Your journey could take up to 15 minutes extra.
I'm not sure which of those five sentences is supposed to provide "further details". Maybe the 15 minutes bit. And there's absolutely nothing useful about alternative routes to help you replan your journey either. If you're standing outside a closed Mile End station this weekend, what is the best way to get yourself on a District or Central line train. No clues here. Sorry, that's pretty rubbish.
3) So, finally, what about the information being presented at Mile End station itself. Well, there's a big red banner hung above the steps just inside the station entrance, and here's what it says:
Now that looks like lots of useful detail, including all the relevant buses needed to reach to the nextdoor stations. But what's not mentioned is how far away the stations are, nor that walking might be a sensible alternative. On the District line, for example, Bow Road's twice as close as Stepney Green, and can be reached on foot in six minutes flat. As for the two Central line alternatives, the suggested bus journey to each station takes is timetabled to take more than 15 minutes. You might even find it quicker to walk up to Bow Road and tube back to Mile End to change to the Central line there. So why are they insisting that you take the bus?
And there's one really important word missing on that banner, and that's "closed". Reading through all this lot it's not immediately obvious that passengers won't be able to enter the station from the street, it's all inferred. There are some text-lite posters within the station itself which announce the "No entry" news, but this isn't a terribly joined-up campaign.
Ticket hall shut, platforms open, it shouldn't be rocket science to explain. I hope that Mile Enders manage to decipher the message for themselves this weekend.
Forgive me, while there's a tube strike on, for looking ahead to next weekend's network closures. But I'd like to focus today on my nearly-local station, Mile End, which is a transport node in sore need of interior upgrade. The station's a real mess inside, and has been for a couple of years, because all the tiles were ripped down immediately before Metronet went bust. There's been no money to replace the tiles since, and the end result is pig-ugly platforms and grim-looking passageways. But a few tentative tiles have now materialised on various boarded-up pillars, and this month work has finally begun on renovating the ticket hall. It's this latter activity which requires part of the station to be closed over several weekends.
