London Bridge walking route redesign

[Mattyblob]

There's an article on BBC referring to a change-up of walking/interchange routes at the station following the recent overcrowding:

A Network Rail poster in the station reads: "New station layout - To make your journeys more comfortable we are changing the walking routes to separate Southeastern, Thameslink and Southern passengers."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64988398

Anyone got more deets?

 

[PGAT]

How are they intending to separate Thameslink and SouthEastern passengers if the Thameslink platforms cut directly in the middle of the Cannon Street and Charing Cross platforms?

 

[Mikey C]

Confused by that, as there aren't separate walking routes once you come down from the through platforms. Maybe they want to discourage passengers using the terminus platforms from using the Southeastern and Thameslink concourse, and instead to stay at the high level for as long as possible?

 

[FOH]

If it's about exiting from platforms in dangerous situations I wonder why not reinstate the old access ramps at those times ...

 

[JonathanH]

I assume the idea would be to change the direction of ticket gates. I can't find anything about it online yet. The BBC article says

Now the layout has been switched up to make exiting quicker and more efficient.

I have never considered entering or exiting the revised London Bridge to be particularly difficult but I don't go there at crowded times.

Segregating access to platforms 1-3, 4/5, 6-9 and 10-15 wouldn't be very helpful.

 

[Magdalia]

We can only speculate on the details as the BBC article does not give any.

One possibility is a repeat of what happened at the EMR platforms at St Pancras, that is switching escalators so that they are paired by direction not use. At London Bridge this could be country end of the platforms up and town end of the platforms down or vice versa.

The main risk with overcrowding on the platforms is the mingling of people trying to get off up escalators when crowds are waiting at the top to go down. Pairing by direction instead of use reduces this risk.

Segregating access to platforms 1-3, 4/5, 6-9 and 10-15 wouldn't be very helpful.

It would be helpful at periods of congestion, because it would allow some platforms to be closed to new entrants without having to do the same for all platforms.

 

[Mikey C]

We can only speculate on the details as the BBC article does not give any.

One possibility is a repeat of what happened at the EMR platforms at St Pancras, that is switching escalators so that they are paired by direction not use. At London Bridge this could be country end of the platforms up and town end of the platforms down or vice versa.

The main risk with overcrowding on the platforms is the mingling of people trying to get off up escalators when crowds are waiting at the top to go down. Pairing by direction instead of use reduces this risk.


It would be helpful at periods of congestion, because it would allow some platforms to be closed to new entrants without having to do the same for all platforms.

London Bridge has stairs as well as escalators, so people would just use those instead, especially going down. And wouldn't it just create far more dangerous overcrowding on the platforms instead as everyone arrives at one part of the platform and has to squeeze along the narrow bit to the other end?

 

[Magdalia]

London Bridge has stairs as well as escalators, so people would just use those instead, especially going down.

Going down is less of a problem, because the big overcrowding risk is on the platforms not in the concourse. And people can queue on stairs, which they can't do on escalators.

wouldn't it just create far more dangerous overcrowding on the platforms instead as everyone arrives at one part of the platform and has to squeeze along the narrow bit to the other end?

This is a valid point that applies at London Bridge but not St Pancras. But at least (nearly) everyone would be moving in the same direction along the narrow parts of the platforms between the two sets of escalators.

Whatever they are proposing, I hope that it has been modelled extensively in advance.

 

[PGAT]

Wouldn’t the easier, cheaper and more popular solution to London Bridge overcrowding be to just reverse the December timetable changes? The bulk of the overcrowding are commuters changing from the Charing Cross platforms to the Cannon Street ones.

 

[FOH]

Whatever they are proposing, I hope that it has been modelled extensively in advance.

I wonder if this may also be partly responsible. The oft mentioned mezzanine interchange level that was cut from the plans to save money. Whether the modelling post that change sufficiently accounted for what we see now.

 

[Bald Rick]

The oft mentioned mezzanine interchange level that was cut from the plans to save money.

The ‘oft mentioned’, but entirely mythical mezzanine level…

 

[alf]

The rebuilding of LB had a great advantage in providing more Charing Cross route platforms & segregating Thameslink via the underpass a mile or so to the east. These benefited service reliability enormously.
The downside was the wonderful cross platform 10 second interchanges between Thameslink & Charing Cross services were destroyed, & also the walking time from train to Northern/Jub line were hugely increased for regulars who knew to be in the front of the London bound trains.

The LB emergency changes now suggested seem designed to make it harder for passengers to interchange, not easier.

The platforms are now wider than before so an interchange bridge is possible & needed with short escalators. And there should an interchange intermediate floor on the route to ground level from the platforms.

It will cost a lot. Maybe a tiny bit of the huge cost should be defrayed by freezing for ever more the pay of the rail bosses who signed off the very costly no expense spared LB scheme & ignored the inevitable interchange delays & the safety risks of the LB scheme.

Too many Network Rail ‘improvements’ are designed to minimise delay minutes, a good objective, but at the cost of total passenger travel time increased.
Viz longer interchange time, longer route from station platform to street or tube.

Midland main line platforms to tube platforms at St Pancras & the huge subterranean interchange route marches on the Liz line are prime examples. Compare with brilliant cross platform interchanges the Victoria line was designed with 60 years ago between the Vic & Northern, Piccadilly & Balerloo. These old railwaymen cared about making it easier for passengers & minimising total travel time.
Today’s rail boses want to make it harder.

I have seen Liz line supremos arguing that the Liz line interchanges with South Eastern at Abbey Wood were deliberately designed to avoid cross platform interchange & built with route marches over bridges to control passengers & have the potential to check interchange tickets.

TfL’s rebuild at Bank with the marathon walks involved & Kings Cross Northern Line platform exits a few years ago was signed off by people with the same mindsets.

 

[swt_passenger]

If it's about exiting from platforms in dangerous situations I wonder why not reinstate the old access ramps at those times ...

They are not there anymore, the platform areas were completely demolished and rebuilt.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Mar 2023 ==

Wouldn’t the easier, cheaper and more popular solution to London Bridge overcrowding be to just reverse the December timetable changes? The bulk of the overcrowding are commuters changing from the Charing Cross platforms to the Cannon Street ones.

That’ll be the answer, the station flows (and track layout) would have been designed specifically for all Southeastern services running right through.

 

[ThameslinkUser]

They are not there anymore, the platform areas were completely demolished and rebuilt.

They remain at the ends of the platform and act as emergency exit routes with the exit area still completely open to the public despite nothing being there



Image 2 credit: https://anonw.com/2018/03/06/a-class-700-train-in-platform-5-at-london-bridge-station/dscn9945-9/

 

[swt_passenger]

They remain at the ends of the platform and act as emergency exit routes with the exit area still completely open to the public despite nothing being there…

Yes there are now emergency escape steps but they are not the original access ramps, and the steps are no longer in the same positions as the old ramps were. Post #4 appeared to be suggesting reopening the ramps.

But, if the platforms were deemed dangerous by passengers, then presumably none of them thought of using them.

 

[FOH]

I went through at the weekend and nothing noticeable had changed, to my untrained eye...