In message , at 14:52:06 on
Mon, 19 Mar 2007, Jack Taylor remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:

Depends where you are starting from. Surely most of the passengers
arrive either by road at the front of the station, or by tube (which
is also at the front of the station). The only direction that the
suburban platforms are closer is St Pancras.

Yes - *currently*. We are talking about the future, when the new main
concourse is built between the GN hotel and the suburban platforms, the new
LUL northern concourse is open, adjacent to it, and the current "temporary"
mess at the front of KX has been demolished and landscaped. The main route
then will be through the new LUL concourse (of from adjacent taxi points)
into the new mainline concourse.

I am sceptical about this new concourse. The Circle line is under the
main road, so all you are altering is where people climb up to the
surface. I can't see why taking people a hundred yards further north to
start with helps very much.

Similarly, the escalators for the deep tube lines stretch pretty much
parallel to the main road, from a point at the front of the station
towards KX Thameslink, and the tube platforms "point" that way too.
Taking people from the deep tube lines via this new concourse is also a
long way round.

Very little traffic will use the existing
entrance/exit at the front of the station, mainly foot passengers exiting to
Euston Road/Pentonville Road/Grays Inn Road or those using that entrance to
LUL. All travellers arriving at King's Cross will be funneled through the
new west side entrance, so the suburban platforms (the only ones for which
access will be "on the level" from the new ticket office) will actually be
far more accessible than the mainline platforms, for which it will be
necessary to go up to the waiting area on the first floor, then across the
new footbridge in the centre of the station and down to platform level using
either escalators or lifts.

What a nightmare! Having used the station and studied the plans in
passing, none of that was particularly obvious.
--
Roland Perry