• Oslo reaches Vision Zero pedestrian deaths (StreetsBlog)
• Grosvenor Canal, London’s last commercial canal (LondonCanals)
• Level boarding fairness: Letting everyone on (PermanentRail)
• Switzerland and France now linked by S-Bahn (RailTech)
• Inside the world’s largest underground shopping complex (Guardian)
• What if bike maps looked more like subway maps (CityLab)
• Stone of Triumph legally takes out badly driven SUVs (Jalopnik)
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Re: level boarding (the linked blog doesn’t have commenting feature)
The blog talks about the many cases where you need to step up to get on board a train. But there are a few cases on the tube where you need to step DOWN, e.g. Jubilee line at West Hampstead, Given the potentially very useful out of station connections at West Hampstead to overground and Thameslink is a station that should be a higher priority for restructuring for step free access–addressing the stairs in some way (lift from platform into the former ticket office?), and maybe having a “dropped” platform section protected by a short section of platform edge doors (station is not too busy and plenty of space) Both Overground and Thameslink are step free now due to recent redevelopments of both.
Also, I don’t see why trains could not be retrofitted to carry self-extending ramps that can be triggered by driver/guard in response to pressing an alert button on inside/outside of train (similar to London double decker buses). Surely cheaper than lowering train floor. In some cases the resulting ramp angle (up or down) may be too great, but should work in lots of cases, unless I am missing something fundamental?
@MILEST
Isn’t the thing to do at West Hampstead to bite the bullet and re-lay the whole of the platform at a step-free level? Given that to make the station totally step-free will require the installation of lifts too?