If you want to use the least used tube station, from today you're semi-buggered.
You probably don't, it is the least used tube station after all, but the Londoners who live nearby are being inconvenienced even more than normal.
RODING VALLEY STATION: From Tuesday 6 May until end of July 2025, westbound trains (towards Woodford) will not stop at the station and the footbridge will be closed. Access to and exit from the station will be via Station Way only. Please travel via eastbound trains and change at Chigwell, or for step-free access change at Hainault or use local London Buses route W14 to Woodford.
The issue is the footbridge which is in need of repair. The lattice bridge dates back to the station opening in 1936, and was brought in from another station so is even older than that. You only have to walk across or stand underneath to see how necessary the upcoming works are, the green paint peeling and the metalwork exposed and tarnished.
The plan is thus for the steelwork to undergo essential maintenance and for everything to be repainted, protecting the structure underneath for many years to come. This requires closing the footbridge for twelve weeks, dividing the station and the local community in two. But apparently it also requires closing the westbound platform, just not for any reason you'd be expecting.
Roding Valley is an unusual station for many reasons - it has very few passengers, it sits precisely on the London/Essex boundary and it's one of only three tube stations with no ticket barriers. It also sits between two streets, both of which have direct access to one of the two platforms, meaning it's been step-free for ages without the need for lifts. What's thus odd is that the station could still function fine without a footbridge, yet they're closing half of it for three months anyway.
What you'd expect, with the footbridge closed, is that if you wanted an eastbound train you'd enter via Station Way (in Essex) and if you wanted a westbound train you'd enter via Cherry Tree Rise (in London). This is precisely what passengers in wheelchairs always have to do. It is a 520m journey from one side to the other via the two streets so not exactly convenient, but better than closing the westbound platform entirely.
It turns out the reason for the closure is risk management related.
"We need to close the westbound platform because station staff would not be able to cross between platforms in the unlikely event of an emergency with the footbridge out of service."
There is a tiny but finite chance that an emergency could occur on the westbound platform before the end of July, whereas staff are generally located on the eastbound platform where the tiny backoffice and kettle are. It would be indefensible for a member of staff to see an unfolding emergency and be unable to reach it, other than via a half-kilometre jog round local streets, so to mitigate this the westbound platform is being closed. Minimal likelihood but severe impact ticks the wrong box on a risk assessment matrix, sorry, hence locals are being massively inconvenienced.
Inconvenience 1: Roding Valley will be served by only three trains an hour
Normally it's three trains in each direction but from today it's just three, clockwise only. If you don't want to go clockwise bad luck.
Inconvenience 2: The trains aren't going very far anyway
Prior to 2020 Roding Valley had direct trains to central London. But in 2020 a shuttle service was reintroduced between Woodford and Hainault, so you can only get as far as one or the other and then you have to change trains. And from today you can only get to Hainault, not Woodford.
Inconvenience 3: Passengers travelling towards central London will only be able to travel via Hainault.
Normally you can go either clockwise or anti-clockwise depending on which shuttle turns up first. Now it's clockwise to Hainault only, which is the longer of the journeys. Likewise if you're trying to get here from central London you can now only get here via Woodford.
Inconvenience 4: "Please travel via eastbound trains and change at Chigwell"
Roding Valley to Woodford usually takes 2 minutes. Now the suggestion is that you go east one stop to Chigwell, swap platforms and go back two stations to Woodford. Alas the existing Central line timetable is not optimised for such a manoeuvre so on arriving at Chigwell you've just missed a train and face an 18 minute wait. Total length of journey 25 minutes, not 2.
Inconvenience 5: "... or for step-free access change at Hainault"
Sorry wheelchair users, Chigwell station is very much not step-free so you can't change there. Instead you have to go three stops to Hainault and then four stops back to Woodford. On the bright side you can probably stay aboard the same train as it reverses and it'll still take 25 minutes.
Inconvenience 6: "or use local London Buses route W14 to Woodford"
Well you could, but the W14 is one of TfL's least frequent buses running only once an hour so you'd probably face a lengthy wait.
Inconvenience 7: It's probably quicker to walk
Roding Valley is just under a mile from Woodford, so about 20 minutes on foot, which is quicker than the 25 minutes a Chigwell changeover takes. But if you're less mobile this is not an option.
Inconvenience 8: Roding Valley station is often unstaffed.
The station's so quiet that, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't have a permanent staff presence. Constant attendance isn't so crucial at a station with no ticket barriers. And this makes a total mockery of the premise that station staff not being able to cross between platforms "in the unlikely event of an emergency" is the reason for closing the footbridge. If TfL are willing to keep Roding Valley open with zero staff they could easily leave it open with zero staff on the westbound platform.
You probably won't be affected by any of this, it is the least used tube station after all. But if you have the misfortune to live near Roding Valley you're being inconvenienced even more than normal and even more than necessary, so bad luck. Until August.
