There's a new tube map out.
But it's only on the TfL website, you can't pick it up in stations.
It's not the map shown on the Maps page on the TfL website, because that's the old one from December. But if you click on the link to Standard Tube Map - PDF you get a new map, dated March, which is new.
There's a new tube map because some stations have reopened. The London Overground reopened in February between Gospel Oak and Barking, after having been closed for several months, and is now shown as open again. Also Lambeth North station reopened in February, after having been closed since July, and is now shown as open again. This is important stuff for passengers to know.
There's also a new tube map because of changes to step-free access. Tottenham Court Road gained full step-free access in February, and is now shown on the map with a white wheelchair blob rather than an empty circle. This means there are now two stations inside the the loop of the Circle line which have step-free access, the other being Green Park, and this is damned excellent news.
Another significant change to step-free access is connected to the withdrawal of the old D-Stock trains from the District line. After the very last D-Stock runs in passenger service on Friday (which you can read more about here and also here), every train on the District line will be properly accessible. A consequence of this is that nine stations which used to have white blobs (step-free from street to platform) have been upgraded to blue blobs (step-free from street to train). The newly blue-blobbed stations are Southfields, Earl's Court, Blackfriars, West Ham, East Ham, Barking, Dagenham Heathway and Elm Park and Upminster. Not all the white blobs have become blue blobs, however, so for example Westminster and Upney haven't changed, and Tower Hill has gone backwards from blue to white, which is strange.
Basically it's all good news. But if you pick up a tube map in a tube station you won't be seeing any of this good news for a while, because TfL only reprint the tube map twice a year, and we're a couple of months off the next one yet. Instead the secret information about reopened stations and step-free access hides on a pdf on the TfL website, which is a heck of a lot cheaper to update, and a lot less obvious to spot.
