Coronavirus causes delay to TfL accessibility programme

Transport for London’s plans to add step free access to nine stations across the tube network has been delayed due to the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

TfL, which looks after all the public transport in the capital, did announce that they wanted to make 100 of their 270 stations step free by 2024. There were plans to complete the work at eleven stations this year, but the national lockdown caused the project to be put on hold.

Representatives at TfL said that the accessibility programme ceased work on site on 23^rd March and the pandemic’s wider impact on the work is still be assessed. While 8 of the 11 planned projects for 2020 restarted in June, the impact of revised ways of working, the state of supply chains and the effect on site productivity and the delivery of step free access is currently under review. However, they were able to announce that Cockfosters has become the 80^th station to become step free and that as part of the accessibility programme, Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms, both on the Northern Line extension, Moorgate, Whitechapel and Ealing Broadway will also become step free as planned.

A spokesperson for the network told reporters: “Burn Oak , Northolt and Hangar Lane, which were scheduled to be delivered this year, have been postponed and are pending further discussions with government around funding. At these tube stations only preliminary work has been undertaken so far and the projects were at a very early stage of delivery.

“Boston Manor, North Ealing, Park Royal, Rickmansworth, Ruislip and Snaresbrook, which were scheduled to be made step free in 2024, are also pending further discussions with government around funding. At these tube stations, only design work has been undertaken so far.”