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What steps is Mayor taking to solve Tube escalator problem?
WHILE great puffs of publicity are blown out by the London Mayoral press machine over how the Olympic project is bang on target, little is volunteered over the dismal state of the capital’s Underground transport system.
Every weekend entire Tube lines or part of them are now routinely shut down ostensibly for modernisation.
The UK railway system has been prone to this kind of English disease for 20 years or more. Now, it is a common feature of the Tube system.
Of course, the basic infrastructure of any transport system and certainly today’s Tube stations needs to be subject to constant scrutiny.
But at Camden Town Tube station the down escalator has been out of action since July 22 and is not scheduled to operate normally until mid-October.
Is it really acceptable, in today’s hi-tech world of engineering, that it should take so inordinately long for the escalator to be operable again?
The closure of the down escalator has meant that commuters are forced to go down a steep spiral staircase of 96 steps. At rush hour, thousands of people are pouring down the crowded staircase – accidents are inevitable.
As a result, the Tube station cannot be used by parents with push-chairs or little children or by the very elderly or by slightly handicapped people. How are these banished travellers expected to use Camden Town Tube?
Tube staff advise them to walk to Mornington Crescent or Chalk Farm Tube stations, a “10-minute walk” away.
For a parent with a push-chair or with children or an elderly person to walk to either of these stations it would take far longer than 10 minutes.
We are challenging those responsible for the Tube system, Transport for London, and the chairman of its board, the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, to act on the state of affairs at Camden Town Tube station where partial closure has applied every weekend for several years.
If Boris Johnson believes he now runs the Met police in London, he is certainly responsible for the Tube system. Boris is a thorough-bred Conservative, a former Conservative MP, a man who does not shy from nailing his Conservative colours to the mast.
The mayor of a city is elected as an independent or on a political ticket.
Boris Johnson should be aware of the importance of Camden Town Tube station. Presumably, he would have used the station. Members of his family live close to it.
Has he looked into the closure of the escalator? Did he ask for a report by the contractors and their engineers? If so, was he satisfied that three months was the timespan to get the escalator working again?
The public are entitled to be given facts, facts and facts again.
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