Hackney Downs Station
I wanted to go to Tottenham today, to answer a few questions that had arisen in my mind after the trip yesterday to IKEA.
I started at Hackney Downs station.
To say it is a dump would not be fair, as I suspect that staff try hard to keep a station that has lacked investment for years, working well.
It could be a very good station and I think it could be made into a major interchange by just a few changes and perhaps by borrowing ideas from the Overground.
The access to the platforms, which is by steep staircases, must be improved. I’m not disabled, but do appreciate the problems of those who are. In a wheelchair, unless accompanied by say four of Her Majesty’s squaddies, you wouldn’t stand a chance.
It is dark and dingy too and desperately in need of an imaginative repainting. Hackney has lots of artists, so perhaps they could help or design a scheme. Has a station ever been converted into an art gallery? I know the Musee d’Orsay was formerly a station, but they threw the trains out. Babies and bathwaters come to mind.
How about adding a food shop and a coffee bar?
The interface to the buses underneath the station is poor, as the picture in the gallery shows. There should be a light-controlled crossing over Dalston Lane.
But there is a lot going for the station.
It is close to the open space of Hackney Downs.
It is well served by services going to Enfield, Tottenham, Chingford, Cheshunt, Hertford and of course, Liverpool Street.
A walkway did link it to Hackney Central and this could be reinstated to create a true rail interchange for Hackney.
The Anonymous Widower 
[…] line has been on an embankment since Hackney Downs and there are again steep steps to get down to the road below. Wikipedia makes this claim about the […]
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[…] line has been on an embankment since Hackney Downs and there are again steep steps to get down to the road below. Wikipedia makes this claim about the […]
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I gather British Rail or whoever owns stations these days have been given a firm talking to about disable access to stations. The station to at least one of the branch lines close to me had no disabled access, but is currently be upgraded and lifts installed etc.
My grandad used to talk about going “over the marshes into London” when he was a boy, meaning Hackney Marshes. had he lived he would have been 122 this year
Comment by liz | August 19, 2011 |
Transport for London has what I think is a sensible policy on disabled access, although it might not comply totally with the law. It would appear it’s something like this.
1. All buses and taxis have full disabled access. Buses have several seats marked for priority use by the disabled, the elderly, the pregnant and those with young children in arms.
2. On the Underground, step free access isn’t universal but it is available at key stations like Kings Cross, Tottenham Hale and many others. The problem is that some stations were dug over a century ago and to dig a lift shaft down would be almost impossible. My local station at HIghbury and Islington is a disabled person’s nightmare and to upgrade it would be very expensive and might be very difficult engineering. All new lines generally have full disabled access.
3. The Overground and the DLR are generally very good. Both were built without escalators to save money and some of the savings was spent on lifts.
4. One of the beauties though of London is that there is often three or four routes to a given place and you hsve your own favourite routes. For instance if I want to go to Higbury and Islington from my house, I could go forty metres round the corner and get a bus. I usually though do the opposite and walk to the other end of my road to Dalston Junction and get the Overground along. It takes a couple of minutes longer, but I sit in a comfortable train and don’t have to cross two main roads at Highbury and Islington.
I also think you get some funny arguments between various groups. Someone told me once that guide dogs are trained to do escalators, but they must be carried on the Underground. Surely, this is something that should be at the person’s risk, as he or she knows their dog’s capabilities.
I think that big cities need a special set of guides to help you pland and get across a city. Suppose you were blind, then you’d call up a guide to meet you at Euston say, and then through to perhaps Waterloo.
People always assume you cross London on the Underground. In most cases you do, but some like Waterloo to Liverpool Street are best by bus.
In all things though, planning is paramount.
Comment by AnonW | August 19, 2011 |
[…] at Central. So perhaps you just do something with the staircases and give it a good or as I said earlier, a wild coat of […]
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