4 ms·
The design document can be found at http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf (link lifted from
by bostik 11y ago
The design document can be found at http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/station-design-idiom-2.pdf (link lifted from first comment in the article).
I find it disturbing that the first major item is "capacity", but then the design parts do not even care to note how the given idiom will work towards that end. Discoverability helps, by making it less likely for individuals to get lost and thus take up valuable commuter real estate, but without sufficient peak throughput it makes very little difference.
Not to mention that if station design does not accommodate for need to widen the tunnels in the future, they are not really aiming for future-proof. The only good measure for capacity is how many commuters can be moved through, and there is an upper bound to how many trains per platform you can fit in an hour. Once that limit is reached, the only way to further increase capacity is to get more people in per train. Hence: make trains longer (and extend platforms), or make them wider (which requires to expand the tunnels).
As for personal taste... I like Canada Water station. It's utilitarian, can sustain a lot of commuter traffic going both ways and doesn't even look that ugly. Sure, it has a weird bottleneck on the street level because all commuters need to take a long circular route to reach the escalators but all parts within the station are spacious and wide.
Not to say that the station couldn't look nicer, of course...
- Symbiote 11y ago> Hence: make trains longer (and extend platforms), or make them wider (which requires to expand the tunnels). Neither of these are possible with any realistic budget, and the year-long line closures for the latter would be intolerable. It's much cheaper to build a new line — for example, Crossrail and Crossrail 2.
- bostik 11y agoI think the first actually does happen already, if only at a smaller scale. I know overground has some stations where the last car can't fit on the platform. (Circle line might have couple of these too, if I remember correctly.) And I've noticed that a couple of fairly central stations have been closed for more than a year due to construction works. So extending platforms a couple of stations at a time should be possible - one fully closed and another with just one end blocked off. It would take ages and insane amounts of money to do that for the entire line, you're right about that. But maybe just for the stations where it would provide the biggest benefit?
- Symbiote 11y agoIt massively shows down alighting time, the "dwell time" is already a big factor in how many tube trains can be run. It's also very confusing to passengers. For both reasons, TfL would be extremely reluctant to introduce it at a central London station. And, there are building foundations and other tunnels in the way in many cases, so it wouldn't be a temporary inconvenience.
- quarterto 11y agoOf the deep level lines, only the Northern line has selective door opening IIRC. It's in use at stations like Moorgate and Embankment that are already so riddled with tunnels that extending the platform is just plain impossible.
- david-given 11y agoI have heard that one of the reasons for building the Crossrail lines is to provide enough spare capacity that they can get away with closing one of the other lines for an extended period of time for long-overdue extended maintenance. In other words, they're currently running at n and want to instead run at n+2.
- lmm 11y agoI think that's more aspirational, particularly given how long it's taken. The Central line is already extremely overcrowded in the peaks, and only yesterday Canary Wharf station had to close to prevent dangerous overcrowding. Even post-Crossrail there may well not be a lot of slack. (Another example: Waterloo is overcrowded and they'd dearly like to start work on bringing the old Eurostar platforms into use. But they can't start that until work on Victoria underground station finishes, because the work will involve diverting some trains into Victoria rail station which would lead to overcrowding in the underground station if they did it while work there was still going on).
- Symbiote 11y agoThat may have been an original plan, but another original plan was to start with short trains, and extend them later. Demand has increased massively since that planning, and the trains will now be the maximum length from the start. So I suspect there won't be as much spare capacity as hoped.
- bostik 11y agoFigures. I moved to London in late 2013, shortly before London Bridge works started. I have been joking from the start that when the works are done and London Bridge opens up fully rebuilt in 2018, it can finally handle the traffic levels of 2008. It looks like that may not have been much of a joke after all. And if there's something I've learned: all other central stations suffer from the same problems. Too much traffic, not enough capacity, not enough trains or platforms, and not even close enough space to hold the people waiting to get either on or off. At some point this city will have to take lessons from around the world and start building multi-level overground rails networks. That's the only direction there's any room to expand to.
- jnsaff2 11y agoAm I the only one who thinks the Westminster station feels like the inside of the Death Star?
- te_chris 11y agoI love Westminster station! To me it's more like the 'real world' from the matrix though - so not dissimilar to the Death Star.
- quarterto 11y ago> making it less likely for individuals to get lost and thus take up valuable commuter real estate Directing people the long way around the station (as signage in more complex stations such as Bank/Monument does) arguably increases the bandwidth of a station, since the bottleneck is almost always the ticket hall and barriers (which are difficult to expand without significant street-level work, for example at Tottenham Court Road and the Cannon Street ticket hall at Bank).
- zeristor 11y agoOr even the Streets themselves; seemingly like roads increased tube capacity begets more traffic. The Crossrail expansion is forecast to be at capacity within only a few years of being opened. They're having issues with what to do with the pedestrians around TCR, the pavements aren't wide enough. Perhaps 2 or more level streets, the 3D city?
- alexbilbie 11y agoPart of the problem could be solved by reducing car traffic in central London and encouraging (perhaps through radically cheap or even free) bus journeys; and improved communication to tourists that sometimes the best way to get from A to B is to walk (e.g Leicester Square to Covent Garden)