Tube accessibility programme quickens pace

Transport for London (TfL) has announced the next six London Underground stations to be made step-free as part of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan’s, £200m boost to make Tube travel more accessible over the next five years.

The next stations to benefit from step-free access will be Amersham, Buckhurst Hill, Cockfosters, Mill Hill East, Osterley and South Woodford. Together they see 15.5 million journeys each year.

Work will begin at Buckhurst Hill on the Central line this year (2017), with work on the other stations starting in 2018. Step-free access is scheduled to be completed at all of these stations by 2020.

The £200m investment will bring the total number of Underground stations with step-free access to all platforms to more than 100. This represents an increase from the current 26% to more than 40% of the network.

It will substantially improve the accessibility of the Tube, making life easier for older and disabled people. It will also give a greater choice of travel options for everyone, and directly benefit parents and carers with children and buggies.

As part of the Tube accessibility programme, TfL is taking a market-led approach whereby suppliers will be asked to devise step-free solutions that can be replicated across many different stations. This will deliver better value for money, encourage greater use of new technologies, and increase competition between companies bidding for the work.

TfL has already brought forward the delivery of step-free access at outer London stations at Harrow-on-the-Hill and Newbury Park, with work beginning at both stations this summer. This is in addition to major stations such as Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Victoria becoming step-free this year (2017).

Step-free access has also been introduced at major Tube stations such as Tower Hill and Vauxhall, and work to make Bromley-by-Bow step-free is well underway. Work is also progressing at vital interchanges including Bank and Finsbury Park.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “It’s absolutely vital that we make our transport network accessible to all, and by investing more in step-free access than ever before, we’re doing what we can to help people right across the Capital.”