Do Pedestrians Accept Their Lot?
I regularly get a 30 or 277 bus to Highbury and Islington station to get the Victoria Line and it has never been the most convenient walk from the stop, as you have to cross two busy roads on controlled crossings. Over the last few months, they have been rebuilding the bridge at the station, which means they’ve moved one crossing making the journey longer.
Do Pedestrians Accept Their Lot?
The picture shows the second crossing.
Pedestrians seem to be accepting the extra walk without complaint.
Hopefully, there’ll be light at the end of the tunnel, when the bridge is completed and the traffic is properly reorganised.
Sorting Out Highbury Corner And Highbury And Islington Station
Highbury Corner is an important transport hub in Islington, where traffic from the City starts to squeeze up the A1 to get North. It also contains the important but badly-designed rail station of Highbury and Islington. This Google Earth image shows the area.
Highbury Corner
Note the green space named as Highbury Island in the middle of the junction with traffic going all the way round in both directions.
The road leading off to the North West (top-left) is the A1, which goes up the Holloway Road to Archway, which is another major junction, that needs a good sorting. The road leading to the East is St. Paul’s Road, which leads to the Balls Pond Road and Dalston Junction. The roads leading to the south from the island are extremely congested at all times and all the way to the Angel and Old Street respectively. They are the sort of roads, that make me glad, I don’t drive any more.
The junction is a pedestrian’s nightmare, as you are constantly crossing busy roads on light-controlled crossings.
What I find particularly difficult is that to get from the stop where buses from my house arrive in St.Paul’s Road to Highbury and Islington station involves two road crossings. It’s so tiresome, that often if I need the Victoria or Northern City Line at the station, I’ll walk to Dalston Junction station and get the North London Line for two stops. Coming home, I’ll get the North London Line back to Dalston Junction and then get any of four buses back towards Highbury Corner to my house.
It’s not quicker, but it’s certainly easier and definitely more pleasant in bad weather.
This illustrates how bad Highbury Corner is for buses, which like the vehicle routes need a very good sorting.
Add to this that Highbury and Islington station is a dreadful 1960s station, that has inadequate access to the two deep lines. To be fair though, access to the four London Overground platforms is a lot better. I have written before that there could also be access to these platforms from the other end, but that may well happen, when a new station is developed.
At the present time, work is ongoing to clear the area in front of the station, by removing the old Post Office, before the main bridge that carries the A1 over the railway is replaced.
In July 2004, Islington Council produced a planning framework for the area. It is packed full of information and some worthwhile proposals.
It suggests the following.
1. Giving public access to Highbury Island and turning it into a green oasis with facilities.
2. Proposals to simplify the traffic flows, with a strong hint, that traffic on the Western side of the Highbury island be closed off.
3. In the rebuilding of the station, it says that building could incorporate extensive development over the North London Line tracks for residential or other purposes.
4. Using the old Highbury and Islington station on the North side of the junction to create a new access for escalators and lifts to the lines deep under the station.
The report also told me, the purpose of the strange elliptical building on the north side of the North London Line, which is at the top-right of the Google image. It’s the vent shaft for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Hopefully, in the next few years, we’ll see the sorting out of the area.
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The Slow Demolition Job At Highbury And Islington Station
I went past Highbury and Islington station yesterday and they’re still demolishing the old Post Office.
Has any other demolition job taken so long? Original gossip in the newsagents and at the station, said it would take a week. I first posted that work had started on the first of February.
I can only thing that the building is built with lots of asbestos.
Never On Sunday!
The Northern City Line never normally works on Sunday, but it did today.
Perhaps it was because of yesterday’s troubles at Kings Cross, a decision was made to run the trains into Moorgate.
What Is Happening At Highbury Corner?
Highbury Corner is a notorious junction, which I used to avoid when I drove, as it could often cause a lot of delay.
These pictures show barriers going up and the crossing outside Highbury and Islington station.
It would also appear that a new crossing is being built about fifty metres up Holloway Road. The guy in the paper shop told me that the main crossing will be closed and that the old Post Office will be demolished. I found this summary of the works here on the TfL web site. All the work is to replace a weak bridge and it says this about the old Post Office in particular.
The empty Post Office building needs to be demolished, and we expect to start work in the week beginning Monday 5 January 2015. The demolition work will be completed by March 2015.
We will make every effort to minimise the impact of noise and dust during the demolition.
The footpaths next to the old Post Office will remain open, although hoardings around the demolition site will make the footpaths narrower. This might create some crowding at busy times, impacting journeys in and out of the station.
In 2015, the main works to replace the bridge will begin.
I think it will be a good idea for pedestrians and drivers to avoid the area until 2017, when the article says that the bridge works will be complete.
The station is at a location where development would surely be worthwhile. Especially, if it put right all of the mistakes of the 1960s, which produced a Victoria Line station for the fit, agile and young. Below ground it’s a dump!
At least though it would appear that the western side of the roundabout will have reduced traffic levels and bus/Underground/Overground connections will be easier. The centre of the roundabout with its trees would also be opened up to the public.
My hopes for the bus/train interchange would include.
1. The 277 bus go right around to terminate in front of the station, ready to pick up passengers arriving at the station.
2. Easy interchange at the station from the 277 to either the 43 or the 271 to go north up Holloway Road towards Archway, Highgate and Barnet. At present you need to use two light-controlled crossings to cross two busy main roads, to affect the change.
3. The reverse journey on a southbound 43 or 271 to catch a 277 eastwards is probably more difficult, unless the buses cut through the western side of the roundabout.
But I think, I’m asking for too much!
I doubt though the development will be as grand as the original.
The Old Highbury and Islington Station
The entry on Wikipedia says this about the history of the station building.
The NLR station was damaged by a V-1 flying bomb on 27 June 1944, however, its main building remained in use until it was demolished in the 1960s during the building of the Victoria line. The original westbound platform buildings remain, as does a small part of the original entrance to the left of the present station entrance.
The Victoria Line might have had world leading automatic train operation when it opened, but most of the architecture and building of the stations, was some of the worst in the UK in the 1960s.
How Will The New Govia Thameslink Franchise Benefit Me?
Although I don’t live directly on Thameslink, I’ve just looked at the Wikipedia entry for the new Govia Thameslink franchise. The section on franchise commitments is significant and includes the following.
Half hourly King’s Lynn to London services
At present there’s only one train an hour for much of the day.
Increasing Great Northern suburban services to four trains per hour via Enfield Chase and New Barnet
I think it’s just three trains at the moment. As these go into Moorgate, it will make it easier to get to Barnet, Hertford etc
Great Northern suburban services to run to Moorgate on weekends and weekday evenings
This is a big change and it will help spectators get to the Arsenal. Hopefully, it might take a bit of pressure off Highbury and Islington station, when Arsenal are at home.
Working to extend Oyster to Epsom, Gatwick Airport, Luton Airport Parkway, Welwyn Garden City and Hertford North
This will be good for me, as when I travel to any of these stations, I won’t need to buy a specific ticket, provided I touch in and touch out.
I suspect other things will happen, but this is a good start.
Living close to Essex Road station, I would use it more, if it was open for more hours and was a more welcoming station architecturally.
So on balance it’s a good thing!
Highbury And Islington Post Office Is Now Shut
The convenient Post Office at Highbury and Islington Station has been closed.
To be fair, it had seen better days and its closure probably makes it more likely, that one of the worse stations in London gets developed as a station for the twenty-first century, hopefully with step-free access everywhere.
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 at Highbury And Islington Station
I was going to Broadstairs today, by taking the high speed train from St. Pancras. As I’d got a parcel to post before, I decided to take 38 or 56 bus to Essex Road Post Office and then get a 73 bus to the station after dropping the parcel. But for some reason, the 38 and 56 were in short supply, but there were two 277.
So I took one to Highbury and Islington station, with the intention of using the Post Office there and then taking the Victoria line to St. Pancras.
But unlike other post Offices locally, the one at Highbury and Islington station didn’t open until nine, rather than eight-thirty. As it was twenty minutes before the hour, I decided to take the Victoria line, so I could use the Post Office by Kings Cross station.
But then I got stuck in the jam of those getting into the station for fifteen minutes. Transport for London haven’t seemed to have organised the escalator servicing in the best way possible. I should have taken my own advice.
Don’t Use Highbury And Islington Station
This post is to remind me not to, until they finish the current works!
I used it on Tuesday and found that the down escalator was under maintenance, so I had to walk down.
Highbury And Islington Down Escalator Under Maintenance
That wasn’t too much of a pain, but I like to avoid it if I can.
This morning, when I wanted to get to Oxford Circus, I found that the whole entry was choked and so I decided to walk to Holloway Road instead.
The latter was suggested by one of station staff, who obviously thought I could walk it.
So that must have been some sort of back-handed compliment.
incidentally, Highbury and Islington station is one of those with three escalator positions and only two escalators. I wonder if in the next few months, they do the sensible thing and install the third escalator.
If they do, surely they should have done that before taking the down escalator out of action for several months.
The Anonymous Widower 