London Banter - View Single Post

Charles Ellson[_2_]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:04:59 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:44:33 +0000 (UTC)
Tim Woodall wrote:
On 2017-12-14, Basil Jet wrote:
On 2017\12\14 15:29, Recliner wrote:

Apparently, the Victoria line was subsequently criticised for inadequate
capacity in the stations, so the JLE was designed to have large, high
capacity stations, even though this meant some platforms were well
separated from others in the station. Some were OK (Canada Water, Canning
Town, Stratford, Westminster, West Ham), others less so (Waterloo, London
Bridge, Canary Wharf).

What's wrong with Canary Wharf JLE station? It's usually considered the
line's architectural highlight?

The escalators down to the platform are exceptionally wide (large dead
space between the two in each group) due to the structural supports down
the middle of the platform. (I assume structural - if it's architectural
'look and feel' then someone should be shot)

This means that although the platform floor area is large, there's
surprisingly little space to stand and people getting to the bottom of
the escalator can find it hard to move away from the end - to the extent
that sometimes they have to hold people back from getting on to the
escalator at all.

True, I found that when I worked there. It could be chaos in rush hour if
a train was delayed.

Also there's the plain fact that canary wharf station is a massive waste of
space. You don't need ceilings 60 foot high in a tube station, they could have
put 3 or 4 floors in to use for other things that would be a benefit to the
area and bring in revenue for LU. As it is its just cathdral sized dead space
that benefits no one other than the architects to say "Look what we did!".

It is easier and quicker to dig a big hole and build within in than to
construct a maze of tunnels as done in older Underground stations. In
the case of Canary Wharf, much of the hole was already there in the
form of the West India dock. The current construction doesn't appear
to necessarily prevent addition of further internal floors/levels if
wanted at some time in the future.