Rolling Traveler

The message of this post is simple: if you’re a wheelchair user planning a trip to London, don’t count on the London Underground. Although Transport for London promises assistance to disabled passengers and does not require wheelchair users to be accompanied on journeys, an analysis of the details of a London Underground journey show that even with staff assistance, there are very few places in Central London that a wheelchair user can realistically go.

The Tube, as it is also known, serves 268 stations in 26 of London’s 32 boroughs, but of those stations, only 49 are fully accessible to wheelchair passengers. Furthermore, of those 49 stations, only 10 are within zone 1, the area of most interest to tourists, and all of those are near its outer limits. To get into the other 219 stations, you need to use stairs and/or escalators, and if you’re thinking of riding the escalators in your chair, as some wheelchair users can, forget it. TfL states that wheelchairs can only be taken on escalators if folded, and only people who can step onto and off an escalator unassisted may use one. Even registered assistance dogs must be carried on moving escalators, according to the TfL web site.

Changing trains is also impossible for wheelchair users at the majority of the zone 1 stations because steps and/or escalators must be used to get from platform to platform. If that wasn’t enough of a complication, getting onto the train from the platform can also be an issue: some of the accessible stations have level differences of up to 8 inches (~20 cm) between the platform and the floor of the train, and a couple have 12-inch (~30-cm) level differences.

Why is the Tube so inaccessible? Because it’s so old. Work on underground railways in London started in the 1850s, and the first section, part of the Circle line, was opened 150 years ago. Most of central London’s Tube stations are from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with only the Victoria line dating from after the Second World War.

As an experiment, I decided to try to plan a journey using the Tube access guide. When in London, I usually stay in the Notting Hill Gate area. Let’s say I wanted to go to Liverpool Street to get the Stansted Express. The nearest accessible station to Notting Hill Gate is Kensington (Olympia), on the District line, so I’d have to take a bus to Kensington (Olympia)… ah, but there’s a 4- to 8-inch level difference between the platform and the floor of the train at that station, so I’ll have to ask for assistance. Liverpool Street isn’t on the District line, so I’ll have to transfer to the Circle, Metropolitan or Hammersmith & City lines, but not to the Central line, because there’s no wheelchair access from the Liverpool Street Central line platforms to the rest of the station.

Now, there’s plenty of stations I could transfer at, but there’s a catch. Only certain platforms at Liverpool Street are accessible, so instead of taking the District line to Tower Hill and transfering there (the shortest route), I’ll have to go to Gloucester Road, and double back… no, wait, not Gloucester Road, because it’s listed and access only between the eastbound platforms. I need to go the opposite direction. South Kensington’s no good for the same reason, and Sloane Square is completely inaccessible to wheelchairs. Victoria is the first station I can transfer at, but I will again need assistance to deal with that level difference: 4 to 8 inches. Then I can take the Circle line all the way to Liverpool Street, and be going in the right direction to be able to use the elevators.

That was only two transfers (bus to District to Circle), and not too much longer a journey (22 as opposed to 17 stops), but when you have to get a bus anyway, and there’s an accessible bus that goes directly from Notting Hill Gate to Liverpool Street in less than an hour, wouldn’t it make more sense to get that? Particularly if you wanted to stop and see something along the way: the only stations with street access for wheelchairs on the Circle line are Westminster, Liverpool Street and Farringdon, but the bus can stop and let you off anywhere. I also played very fairly: if I’d chosen Picadilly Circus, Charing Cross, Marble Arch or Hyde Park Corner as my destinations, no amount of transfering would get me there: all four tourist spots have completely inaccessible stations.

For more information on London Underground accessibility, go here, but be warned that the TfL paints a rosier picture of accessibility than they perhaps should. Go here and scroll down for a .pdf of an accessible Tube map, and be sure to download the Tube access guide index that goes with it. It contains the information on level differences, directions in which it is possible to transfer, and so on.

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