wrote:

On Fri, 5 Jun 2009 10:07:31 +0100
Chris Tolley (ukonline really) wrote:


Peter Beale wrote:

1506 wrote:

AFIK extending the Bakerloo is fading back into obscurity. I don't
see any negative issues. But mixing tube with mainline and subsurface
stoke means that the platforms have to be compromise height. Better
in my view to keep the Bakerloo as is, and extend the East London Line.

That didn't seem to be a problem for the 65 years (1917-1982) that the
Bakerloo ran to Watford Junction. And of course it remains the situation
from Queens Park to Harrow & Wealdstone.

That's true, but we have a more enlightened attitude to disabled
passengers than our predecessors, so it isn't persuasive.

So if disabled can't be accomodated then the best solution is that no one is?
Is that what you're saying?

I don't believe I am saying that, no. I believe I'm saying that the
standards of the past, where such things were not taken into account, do
not apply today. And on checking, I find that is just what I wrote.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9683699.html
(51398 (Class 117) at Great Malvern, Jun 1985)

MIG wrote:
On 5 June, 13:46, wrote:

So if disabled can't be accomodated then the best solution is that
no one is? Is that what you're saying?

More that the disabled will never be accommodated and will continue to
be ignored unless new works have to meet certain standards. There are
centuries of precedent for this and they've had enough. Sometimes the
requirements seem to go too far, but I understand why.

There is a more useful and cheaper alternative: that each railway be allowed
to open new inaccessible stations so long as the number of inaccessible
stations on that company's network gradually goes down. So if they opened up
a new branch with three stations where wheelchair access would be expensive,
relatively pointless or impossible, they could make up for it by making six
other stations wheelchair accessible elsewhere on the network where it was
cheaper and/or more useful. The current rules make certain new stations
financially unviable, helping neither the disabled nor the able bodied.

E.L. O'Hesra wrote:

There is a more useful and cheaper alternative: that each railway be allowed
to open new inaccessible stations so long as the number of inaccessible
stations on that company's network gradually goes down. So if they opened up
a new branch with three stations where wheelchair access would be expensive,
relatively pointless or impossible, they could make up for it by making six
other stations wheelchair accessible elsewhere on the network where it was
cheaper and/or more useful. The current rules make certain new stations
financially unviable, helping neither the disabled nor the able bodied.

I presume you intend that suggestion to be taken with the same
seriousness as your inverted name.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9632852.html
(33 051 at Eastleigh, 1985)

On Jun 5, 4:38*pm, "E.L. O'Hesra"
wrote:
MIG wrote:
On 5 June, 13:46, wrote:

So if disabled can't be accomodated then the best solution is that
no one is? Is that what you're saying?

More that the disabled will never be accommodated and will continue to
be ignored unless new works have to meet certain standards. *There are
centuries of precedent for this and they've had enough. *Sometimes the
requirements seem to go too far, but I understand why.

There is a more useful and cheaper alternative: that each railway be allowed
to open new inaccessible stations so long as the number of inaccessible
stations on that company's network gradually goes down. So if they opened up
a new branch with three stations where wheelchair access would be expensive,
relatively pointless or impossible, they could make up for it by making six
other stations wheelchair accessible elsewhere on the network where it was
cheaper and/or more useful. The current rules make certain new stations
financially unviable, helping neither the disabled nor the able bodied.

Can you name a single potential new station that have been made
unviable by the accessibility rules? Wheelchair access doesn't add
much to the cost, if planned from the start, certainly compared to the
costs of modifying an existing station. If a potential spot is
unviable with the rules, then it is unlikely to have had a clear cut
case in the first place.

wrote:
On Jun 5, 4:38 pm, "E.L. O'Hesra"
wrote:
MIG wrote:
On 5 June, 13:46, wrote:

So if disabled can't be accomodated then the best solution is that
no one is? Is that what you're saying?

More that the disabled will never be accommodated and will continue
to be ignored unless new works have to meet certain standards.
There are centuries of precedent for this and they've had enough.
Sometimes the requirements seem to go too far, but I understand why.

There is a more useful and cheaper alternative: that each railway be
allowed to open new inaccessible stations so long as the number of
inaccessible stations on that company's network gradually goes down.
So if they opened up a new branch with three stations where
wheelchair access would be expensive, relatively pointless or
impossible, they could make up for it by making six other stations
wheelchair accessible elsewhere on the network where it was cheaper
and/or more useful. The current rules make certain new stations
financially unviable, helping neither the disabled nor the able
bodied.

Can you name a single potential new station that have been made
unviable by the accessibility rules? Wheelchair access doesn't add
much to the cost, if planned from the start, certainly compared to the
costs of modifying an existing station. If a potential spot is
unviable with the rules, then it is unlikely to have had a clear cut
case in the first place.

IIRC putting lifts in a brand new station in a cutting or on an embankment
approximately doubles the cost. Allowing passive provision for future lift
installation costs very little. With new stations in relatively quiet areas,
such as Eastfields, the cost of lifts could easily make or break the
business case for the station. The money spent on installing lifts at a
quiet station like Eastfields which already has a wheelchair-accessible
station next door at Mitcham Junction would have been much better spent on
installing lifts at a busier station in an area with no wh-acc station, such
as Tulse Hill or Peckham Rye. (Actually, Eastfields has level access to both
platforms, and the lifts are merely part of the footbridge over the level
crossing - an utterly ridiculous example of wasting money on political
correctness if ever I've seen one. I wonder if those lifts were used once in
their first year.)

On Jun 7, 3:37*pm, "Basil Jet"
wrote:
wrote:
On Jun 5, 4:38 pm, "E.L. O'Hesra"
wrote:
MIG wrote:
On 5 June, 13:46, wrote:

So if disabled can't be accomodated then the best solution is that
no one is? Is that what you're saying?

More that the disabled will never be accommodated and will continue
to be ignored unless new works have to meet certain standards.
There are centuries of precedent for this and they've had enough.
Sometimes the requirements seem to go too far, but I understand why.

There is a more useful and cheaper alternative: that each railway be
allowed to open new inaccessible stations so long as the number of
inaccessible stations on that company's network gradually goes down.
So if they opened up a new branch with three stations where
wheelchair access would be expensive, relatively pointless or
impossible, they could make up for it by making six other stations
wheelchair accessible elsewhere on the network where it was cheaper
and/or more useful. The current rules make certain new stations
financially unviable, helping neither the disabled nor the able
bodied.

Can you name a single potential new station that have been made
unviable by the accessibility rules? Wheelchair access doesn't add
much to the cost, if planned from the start, certainly compared to the
costs of modifying an existing station. If a potential spot is
unviable with the rules, then it is unlikely to have had a clear cut
case in the first place.

IIRC putting lifts in a brand new station in a cutting or on an embankment
approximately doubles the cost. Allowing passive provision for future lift
installation costs very little. With new stations in relatively quiet areas,
such as Eastfields, the cost of lifts could easily make or break the
business case for the station. The money spent on installing lifts at a
quiet station like Eastfields which already has a wheelchair-accessible
station next door at Mitcham Junction would have been much better spent on
installing lifts at a busier station in an area with no wh-acc station, such
as Tulse Hill or Peckham Rye. (Actually, Eastfields has level access to both
platforms, and the lifts are merely part of the footbridge over the level
crossing - an utterly ridiculous example of wasting money on political
correctness if ever I've seen one. I wonder if those lifts were used once in
their first year.)

But the lifts will be an extra cost that is not necessarily needed at
many locations, ramps are a suitable alternative. I recently used Tame
Bridge parkway, where access to the station, in a cutting is via ramps
from street level. Ramps are unlikely to double the cost of a new
station and what is needed is for Network Rail (or who ever is paying
for the station) to challenge a design including lifts when they are
not necessary. I do agree that adding lifts at Eastfields was a waste
of money, as access would have been available anyway.

1506 wrote:
Is Watford normally a Tory voting area? I suspect that it is. In
which case, this has a small chance of going forward. That said I am
not especially optimistic.

After years of that happening under New Labour, do we still believe it
to be the case under an alternative government? The PTE areas did very
well for themselves in the '80s and early '90s with new stations,
electrification, more services and not to mention LRT projects in
Greater Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands and the Airport extension
to the Tyne/Wear Metro, all initiated under the Conservatives despite
the fact that the Metropolitan Counties were mostly controlled by Labour.

Watford is not normally a Conservative voting area.

"Commuter" wrote in message
...
1506 wrote:
Is Watford normally a Tory voting area? I suspect that it is. In
which case, this has a small chance of going forward. That said I am
not especially optimistic.

After years of that happening under New Labour, do we still believe it to
be the case under an alternative government? The PTE areas did very well
for themselves in the '80s and early '90s with new stations,
electrification, more services and not to mention LRT projects in Greater
Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands and the Airport extension to the
Tyne/Wear Metro, all initiated under the Conservatives despite the fact
that the Metropolitan Counties were mostly controlled by Labour.