please empty your brain below

I had read what LR and others had said about the Idiom, but they had chosen to focus on the illustrations. Your article actually brings out the core of what they are proposing which looks exciting and engaging. I thought the illustrations were truly horrible e.g the blue passageway (they did an all over advert at Euston about 18 months agdo that was all blue. The sense of claustrophobia was great and I don't usually suffer!).

So, summing up, I think the Idiom is great, but they need to employ some decent designers to interpret them.
....."Video walls along the entire length of the escalators are planned; hopefully, sound, lighting and perhaps smell will also be available for a completely immersive sensory experience.".....

So that's why they are try to get us to stand on both sides instead of walking, must not miss the advertisers video show.
"Delight and Surprise" is a wonderful concept, and I hope one that's really embraced.
Judging by the picture of Oxford Circus, they've also removed the escalators down to the platforms.

I guess they're just clutter and the passengers can enjoy the perfect circular space and forget about their journey.
It is good that someone is thinking about this sort of thing at last. But I don't want a "totally immersive sensory experience" on the Underground. I want to get to my destination as quickly and easily as possible. Visual and audible (and olfactory) clutter do not help.

So, where does the gateline go? Is there some sort of replacement?
Shame the authors of the Idiom haven't double checked with others in TfL. The future Oxford Circus "will have no gateline". When asked about this possibility, by a London Assembly Member, Shashi Verma of TfL didn't consider it feasible for a very long time and felt that operational needs, like managing passenger flows, would mean they were retained.

I can't see Oxford Circus ever being operated without some form of access control system. It's already so bad that people are forced to queue outside and then again multiple times within the station every PM peak period. Crossrail will make little difference because any freed up capacity will be gobbled up within months. It would be better if people were concentrating on practical issues like network capacity rather than creating an advertiser's paradise.
I wonder how many people googled Bostwick gates ?
Oxford Circus is on LU's "hit list" of the next ten station capacity enhancements - and long overdue. I presume the gates will be located in new entrances. But this is all a long way off.
yes, Kev, I googled Bostwick gates ... learn something new every day, gates designed for horse racing end up everywhere
I used to commute on the Tube. Glad I no longer have to, some of the 'advertising opportunities' sound horrendous!
Hope they do this for buses too.
I'm glad they recognise the importance of integrating a station into its surrounding environment, if only as a way of distributing passengers across a range of different street access points through underground concourses, as in Montreal or Canary Wharf. Oxford Circus and Leicester Square are prime candidates for this sort of treatment, now that it looks as though Tottenham Court Road will finally be joining the 21st century with the Crossrail development. But it will depend on persuading local landowners to join in and share the cost. More escalators to the street, please.
"the ticket hall is one of the most sought after parts of the station as it has the potential to deliver 100 per cent of traffic flow and usually good dwell times too"
"Dwell times", what a wonderful way to describe queuing!
I don't live in London, but I thought it was a rather lovely document. Of course the commercial and public funding realities are that advertising and retail outlets are necessary. I wish we had mechanisms for doing this sort of thing elsewhere in the country - so many rail stations and bus stations are horrible spaces.

There was far too much grumbling about the details of the renders in the comments after the LR article.
Plus ca change c'est la meme chose - the more it changes the more it stays the same. This is over-simply a rewrite of the station design and capacity principles I contributed to (and was ignored a lot) in 1989-1991.

We set 'minima' then, which of course became 'standards'; we allowed for passenger [never 'customer'] numbers to grow but rebuilds became catering for present users.

The ideas are always wonderful - real planners with real experience developing real schemes with maintainability, to last 140 years in subterranean conditions [which we could never explain to one politician in particular who thought that building an Underground station was just like erecting a house], the sites integrated with other transport and designing-out blind corners etc... But that cost money (then as now) and minima became something to say "how quaint" to when reminded to decision-makers and budget-setters.

Today's news about 'Oxo' station closures highlights the need for big-picture planning - such as the diversion of bus passengers to rail because of roadway congestion, which adds to user numbers. However, silo mentality rules, so I continue to dream, which is at least affordable.
But Joel, are you suggesting that Oxford Circus wasn't designed for future capacity when it was rebuilt in the 60s? Surely we have just hugely surpassed what they expected from traffic levels?

But yes, I think the being part of the community thing is very important and much ignored. I think this was one thing Holden really understood, hence the tall lit up ticket halls that can be seen from a distance and are a welcoming glow out into the local area.
@ Kirk - the problem is that works on the tube to raise capacity are rarely specced to give a genuine step change that will last decades. The Victoria Line was subject to penny pinching cuts which is why £800m is having to be spent at Victoria to try to improve matters. There are multiple other examples where the money and the political commitment to seemingly (at the time) outlandish schemes has not been forthcoming. The result is chronic overcrowding within a few decades or, in some cases, years or months. Some of the Jubilee Line extension stations are beginning to creak at the seams despite a genuine attempt being made to allow for many decades of growth.

Crossrail has been "value engineered" and at some point within the next 20-30 years I'm sure those cuts will make themselves obvious. There is no real strategy for the tube other than upgrades and stripping out cost. There's no "vision" about really growing the system or addressing the substantial weaknesses that come from old infrastructure. Building Crossrails is all very fine and decades overdue but where is the plan to substantially expand the Tube? Moscow and Paris have such plans and Chinese cities build more Metro lines in a 3 years than London has managed for 100 years. Unfortunately no politicians see expanding the Tube as a sensible or potentially popular policy.

If we can't get a sensible policy nor planning horizon does anyone really think that a Design Idiom stands any chance of substantive implementation? I don't. Like Joel I've seen it all before from the inside. I'm sure we'll see the NLE stations in full Idiom glory and possibly Camden Town but beyond that I think we will struggle. When funds are tight it is station works that get chopped and there's nothing to suggest that has changed in the wake of £100m+ being chucked away on Sub Surface resignalling contract problems. Only the most basic works are being done to ensure asset health and to tidy up the grottiest stations.
is the derelict charm of Temple also part of the plan?
Thanks PC - CrossRail is known to be unable to cope with future loads, because of the unexpected, unsuspected rise in London's population. No 'big picture' planning, and as PC says, built to a price.

If Oxford Street is pedestrianised, neither CrossRail nor the Central will cope. TCR re-opening this weekend on the Central will make Holborn and 'Oxo' safer. I have been genuinely frightened by Holborn crowding for some years; being caught in that up to twice-weekly for the last few years hasn't eased those fears. Holborn desperately needs capacity enhancement (er, 2018 if we're lucky?) and another surface entrance. But where's the money for those improvements?

Buses are losing passengers to the Underground because of unreliability on the road and vehicles not running for lack of drivers, adding to subterranean woes. We need integrated solutions, integrated thinking and abandonment of 'silo mentality'. Hope this isn't too much off-thread but the absent 'big picture' vista is scary.










TridentScan | Privacy Policy