Could We Create A Second Entrance To The Overground At Highbury And Islington Station?
Highbury and Islington station is not one of my favourites.
It has only two escalators to get to the deep-level platforms for the Victoria line and the Northern City line. At least we have now got two fully working examples, but a much needed third escalator can’t be fitted in the empty position, as there is not enough circulation space at the bottom.
It’s all because it was a typical 1960s Jerry-built station like several on the Victoria line.
One of the problems is that although since the Overground was opened at Highbury and Islington, there is more space on the concourse, at certain times, like an evening match at The Emirates, every passageway and the space in front of the station, gets seriously overloaded.
Although the Overground was built to a price, they did save money by using good design, rather than just leaving something out, as they did on the Victoria line.
For this reason, although they could have reinstated the Eastern Curve at Dalston Junction, to enable trains to go directly between Stratford and the East London line, they chose not to, but instead made Canonbury station, into a good, easy and efficient interchange. Especially, if you were coming from Stratford and going south to or through Dalston Junction! I regularly if I’m coming home from Stratford, change at Canonbury to a southbound train and go to the first stop; Dalston Junction, from where I take one of the numerous buses home. It sounds complicated, but if I have a heavy parcel, there is only one set of steps, which can be bypassed by a lift.
To facilitate train changing at Highbury and Islington station, they also built a second footbridge over the tracks, at the western end of the platforms. This footbridge is also designed to serve an emergency exit from the station.
This footbridge and its associated emergency exit, opens on to the road alongside the station;Highbury Station Road. So could this exit be expanded into a full entrance and exit to the station? I took a walk around the station to see it all from the outside.
The residential developments around the north side of the station, probably wouldn’t take too kindly, to large numbers of people and especially football fans passing down their road. But it is only a short walk up Highbury Station Road on the south side to the wide expanses of Liverpool Road, which is in fact, an area poorly served by buses.
So a second entrance is probably feasible and it might give benefits to those, who live in the area to the west of the station. As Liverpool Road leads to the Emirates Stadium, a second entrance might help with congestion on the Holloway Road on match days.
Admittedly, a second entrance here would really only serve the Overground, but bear in mind that over the next couple of years, the capacity of trains on that set of lines, will be increased by twenty-five percent. This will put more pressure on Highbury and Islington station, which is a terminus of the Overground and the main northern interchange to the Underground.
I suspect too, that more football supporters will be using the Overground to get to the stadium. Remember that football fans have different travel patterns to say commuters and usually have a window of an hour or so before the match, when they can turn up. So they’ll see the extra capacity on the Overground and perhaps take a few minutes longer to get to the stadium in comfort, rather than crammed into an Underground train.
A second entrance would have certainly helped on Saturday, with all the chaos in the Balls Pond Road. If of course, the Overground had been running.
Chaos In The Balls Pond Road
The roadworks that caused all the problems with the buses, last week are still ongoing. There are no open bus stops and just one narrow lane for the traffic.
One Narrow Lane In The Balls Pond Road
When I left home this lunchtime, I walked to the next stop, where there was an angry crowd and even angrier drivers trying to get onto the Balls Pond Road.
The diversion on Dove Road was congested and totally inadequate, especially as they were running extra buses as the Overground was closed, so putting a large number of extra passengers on the buses. When I returned later in the afternoon, the problems were made worse, by everybody trying to get to the Emirates to see Arsenal at home to Liverpool.
If they’d wanted to organise chaos, they’d created it, in the best way possible.
I was talking to a bus driver and he blamed Boris, which was a bit unfair.
As my background is project planning and management, I believe this chaos was all down to no co-ordination between the parties involved. The Arsenal match has been in the calendar for months, so surely to do the necessary resurfacing work, on a match day was a bad decision. It was probably costly too, as it meant that all of the chaos, meant that not as much progress as had been hoped was made.
Surely too, the Overground should have been kept open, whilst the road was effectively closed, as this closure imposes extra strains on the road network.
The only good thing about the roadworks, was that I could cross Southgate Road with ease.
A Closed Southgate Road
But crossing the Balls Pond Road is difficult for pedestrains, as there are no lights and we’ve been left to our own devices and wits.
No-one seems to have any idea, how long this chaos will go on. Although this notice mentions that Phase 5 ends on the first of December.
I can’t help feeling, that traffic problems in the area would be helped on match days, if the Northern City line was open between Finsbury Park and Moorgate. Perhaps, when Thameslink is fully established this line will get some long-needed improvement.
I Finally Get To Watch A Premier League Football Match On BT Sport
I’ve had BT Sport for about three or four months now!
I’m now sitting at my table, typing at my computer and I’m just about to watch the first Premier League football match on the channel.
The reason, is that normally at this time, I’m travelling to see Ipswich Town, and they played last night. I could have seen a previous match, but I wasn’t interested, as it featured Norwich.
Newcastle against Chelski, wouldn’t be my choice of a match, but at least I may have the pleasure of seeing the London side lose.
A Pre-Match Meal In Ipswich
Yesterday, it was football at Ipswich at 19:45 due to SKY, so it was an early train to avoid the rush hour and a pre-match meal in Pizza Express on the waterfront.
PX is the only really coeliac-friendly restaurant in the town centre. I’ve yet to find a good Indian one, close to the football ground.
PX was heaving, so it does appear that the demand might be coming up in the town, which in my view and those of some of my friends is a restaurant graveyard. I always wondered if East Suffolk people go to bed early, ever since my father and I used to walk home from his club in Felixstowe at about 21:30 and see all the houses cmpletely dark.
But getting to and from the quay and PX in the dark is a walker’s nightmare, with uneven pavements and all sorts of barriers everywhere. How many drunks will tip into the dock?
However there did seem to be a lot of good development going on at the waterfront, but knowing Ipswich as I do, I doubt that it will be complete for upwards of five to ten years.
The quay might end up as a good place to go, but it’s not that close to the town centre, the railway station and the other attractions in the town, like Christchurch Mansion, the Wolsey Theatre and the football ground.
If ever a town was crying out for a free circular bus-route that ran around the town centre like Manchester’s Metroshuttle, it is Ipswich!
At least though the meal was good and walking down the hill to the restaurant from the station was easy, even if I didn’t find the quickest route back to the football ground in the dark. In the light, I’d have had the liths to guide me!
I shall go again in the light!
Hollande Shows How To Ru(i)n Football
The top French football clubs, are showing what they think of President Hollande’s high earner tax, by going on strike, as is reported here on the BBC. Here’s the first paragraph.
French President Francois Hollande has rebuffed protests against a 75% tax on high earners, prompting football clubs to press on with a planned “strike”.
Mr Hollande stood firm by his plan to levy the tax on incomes above 1m euros (£850,000; $1.36m) at a meeting with club presidents.
Ed Milliband admitted in this interview to being a lapsed Leeds United supporter and now follows Doncaster, so expect him to raise taxes like Hollande if he gets elected, as it won’t effect any of his teams. It might even raise Doncaster into the Premier League!
Racism In Moscow
One of the stories dominating the news on my trip north was the racial abuse of Yaya Toure in Moscow by so-called fans of CSKA Moscow.
I shall be looking forward to the fifth of November and the return fixture in Manchester.
Knowing Manchester City fans, they might come up with an unusual and probably humorous protest, that everybody, except racists, will applaud.
As my father often said, there’s nothing that bigots, fascists and bullies hate more than ridicule.
Oh Dear! Christmas Is Coming!
I hate Christmas and the older I get, the more I do so. Remember C died just before Christmas in 2007.
Oh Dear! Christmas Is Coming!
This picture from John Lewis sums it all up. Tat hanging from the ceiling, to try to get you into a jolly mood!
This year, I won’t even have the relief of football on Boxing Day, as Ipswich are playing in Doncaster and there won’t be any trains.
What Do Arnold Schwarzenegger, Pete Sampras, Carl Jung And Roy Hodgson Have In Common?
I could also throw in Magic Johnson, Esther Williams, Lucille Ball and Albert Hitchcock.
So Roy is the only football manager there, but they are a successful group of individuals.
And they’re all quetzals or those born under the sign of Leo in the Chinese year of the pig. I don’t believe in astrology, but I read a book linking the various threads of the beliefs together some years ago and they described Leo pigs as blessed and a 100% pure pork.
Sometimes when I look at my life, I certainly feel I have been very lucky and have made the best of at times of a very dodgy and difficult set of cards.
The same could be said for Roy Hodgson, who took over the poisoned challenge of the England job and has now got us to the World Cup Finals in Brazil.
But then you underestimate the strength of character of a Leo pig at your peril!
I should know, as Roy is just seven days older than myself!
A Stadium In Need Of Updating
Hillsborough has seen better days.
These days you expect to have an uninterrupted view and some form of decent match timing device.
You can understand, why it is no longer used for FA Cup Semi Finals. I know the reason is to get more matches at Wembley, but I go to so many stadia, that are far superior to Hillsborough these days.
A Crazy Day!
Yesterday was a day I won’t forget.
As I said in this post, I was having a lot of frustrations with East Midland Trains, and decided to come back by Virgin from Birmingham.
I also decided to make a day of travelling, as I had someone with an idea, to meet in Manchester, so I decided to go via Preston and then come in to Manchester from the north west.
I left on the 08:30 from Euston and my main reason to go to the city was to see Preston bus station and the city’s buses. Although, I did walk around the market and the shopping area, visit the Preston Martyrs Memorial, looking unsuccessfully for a cup of coffee. It is not a city centre of which to be proud, as I mused here.
I left around 13:00 and took trains 2 and 3 of the day to get to Eccles via Huyton.
Arriving in Eccles, I bought a day travelcard for the trams and then explored some of the new lines, before going back Carluccio’s in Piccadilly station to have my meeting.
I then took trains 4 and 5, from Manchester to Derby after my meeting, saw the match which was a crazy four-all draw and then came back into Euston at 01:30 this morning, using trains 6 and 7.
I’m a bit tired this morning, but it was a good day and it could have been much worse if Ipswich had lost. It would also have been a lot more expensive, if I’d decided to partake of some of dubious and very expensive hospitality of East Midlands Trains.
I must say this for Travelodge, who when I decided to not use the room I had booked, allowed me to painlessly cancel it with no charge over the Internet.
The Anonymous Widower 