please empty your brain below

There being well over 200 London Underground ticket offices, we could do with some more ideas.
Some extra public toilets.
cashpoints can't be Barclays- Raphael's bank (who?) seem now to have the contract for all underground stations

How about installing lift shafts for disabled access in the ticket office spaces (I'm thinking Harrow on the hill here)

or alternatively paint the space with a blue semicircle and allow multi person busker troupes (think Diversity dance troupe here) rather than the one man bands allowed to play now
Recruit an army of "Volunteer Tube Guides" from people who obsess over TFL and the Tube network. Give them blue bibs sponsored by a well known bank. Install them in the "Volunteer Tube Information Centres" handily located in the old ticket offices. Don't pay them but give them unlimited free tea providing they make it themselves.

Install a Tourist Information kiosk staffed from the TI network, handing out useless but free pamphlets that have nothing to do with the tube network.

Spend x million on developing a computerised expert system with full natural language and video processing that can issue tickets in response to spoken commands and hand gestures in multiple languages. Include a system for accepting coins and note that can make change from any of 54 currencies. And then plan to roll this out over a decade with a terminal in each of the old ticket offices. Cancel the project just before roll out when development costs over-run by a factor of ten.
4, 7, 14 or 26. Definitely not 40.
Open up a Harris and Houle coffee place.

What do you mean you haven't heard of them over in East London, yet?
7) would probably often become:-
Replace the glass with an iPad showing 'Error 404 Not Found'.
After my Oyster card failed as I went through a barrier at a rural tube station yesterday, I can say it's crucial to have staff on hand to help. Unfortunately, given the attitude of that member of staff to a genuine problem, I would rather see such members of staff locked in a ticket office with no possible way of making contact with members of the public
Pay a member of staff to sit and read a book there
(41) At each station, a enormous screen explaining in every language on the planet Earth what these two words mean

"keep left"

You have to wonder then, where is the logic behind corridors and stairways having "Keep left" signs all over the tube, only to be confronted with "Stand on the right" when you get to an escalator. I think it's time we all stood on the left instead.
Geofftech, I've pondered this conundrum a number of times. I think it's something to do with how we expect to walk on the left as we drive on the left (or is that just me?) but prefer to use our right hand for support on the escalators (as most people are right handed). I'd be happy to see a blanket 'keep right' across the whole of the network.
Ticket office being an obsolete thing. Doesn't it make you feel old?
Geofftech: of people stood on the left on escalators then people moving quickly would have to cross paths with people moving slowly.
41) Create a small museum of Luddism celebrating those who sought to maintain jobs when new technology had made them obsolete. We could feature telegram-boys, sedan-chair carriers, cinema news-reel makers, sock hand-knitters, washerwomen or, indeed, the workers on printed-and-sold London listings and local information magazine which excellent blogs such as this one are effectively supplanting. Be careful in your glass house, DG...
Well, given that Post Offices have been disappearing.....why not make them multi-delivery provider distribution points - not just Amazon lockers.
Would they be big enough to turn into Fitness Centres? They could have some of those treadmill machines for people whose daily commutes simply don't give them enough exercise.
Or maybe turn them into fast food outlets selling curries or kebabs.
Neck-and-shoulder massage points. Fish/feet therapy centres (whatever happened to those?). Yes to collect-your-goods points. Shoe shines. Creches.
I like #3, but South Kensington Station had that anyway - at least in the late 70s-early 80s - proximity to the Royal School of Music etc. An entirely better class of busker!
Passenger lounge for executive travellers with drinks, snacks and comfortable chairs to enjoy whilst they wait for their train
Alternatively do absolutely nothing with (most of) them because the entry door is shared with the enclosure that houses the ticket machines which station staff and engineers will still need to access. Will LU want "all and sundry" having access to areas where the money is? All the space in the back will slow fill with cobwebs and dust due to lack of use.

Sorry to be serious rather than mildly frivolous but there are real issues that need to be considered in trying to re-use the ticket office secure suite areas. I can see that some might be reused but most will not because they're all different sizes, shapes and you can't create new uses that would conflict with access to the remaining ticket machines, the gateline or adversely affect circulation space (that may well jam up with people asking the roving member of staff loads of questions).
for number 30, don't fill it with fish and water. fill it with KITTENS!!! (and some fish for them, and balls of wool and other toys)
It's been a good long while now since uni, but when I had a student Oyster photocard I had to go down to the tube ticket office each month to buy my discounted travelcard because you couldn't do it at the machine. This would be support for #40 if still true.
Build a model railway tube layout in them!
What PC said.
Note, though, that of the 260-270 London Underground stations and the 250-odd ticket offices that are to close, the Fit For The Future - Stations plan only pledges an extra 150 new ticket machines to replace them.
Convert them into these:
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/1248/
@James A: "I'd be happy to see a blanket 'keep right' across the whole of the network". Except for the trains ? (ok, except - again - at White City etc. etc.)
@Georgia it is expected that the staff will be able to add railcard discount at the ticket machines once these are upgraded.

@PC I'm sure if they go to the bother of removing the glass fronts and walls to repurpose them to retail or delivery lockers or similar then the corridor to back of bourse can just be bricked up too.
Libraries (esp. e-book - plenty of those on the tube already)and non-contact cards are used already.....
Following on from Paul's point, making deliveries to many stations is a nightmare (think of Oxford Circus - a collection of narrow staircases at a busy road junction) which will be more trouble than it's worth to some prospective tenants. Many stations don't really have proper addresses either.
@ Jon - good luck with removing the glass windows on JLE stations. They're enormously heavy because of their thickness. Ditto any safes that are in ticket offices - again large and v heavy. Don't forget that tube stations that are underground will have full fire compartmentation etc. I'm not saying these are insurmountable issues but there is a cost involved in converting premises and where's the money coming from? Hopefully not from TfL!
No. 2 won't work - you'd never be able to hear the performers and they wouldn't hear any applause (in the unlikely even of there being any).

On the other hand, to expand on Richard M's suggestion, how about completely replacing them with a cinema-style organ that rises from the floor and plays a selection of music appropriate to the time of day, Waterloo-style?
Replace the window and microphone / speaker with a video link to a call centre in Bangalore (or Dublin, or Stratford).

Fit a video screen in the window showing messages from Boris for his mayoral/electoral campaign, latest photo opportunity and daily news on constant repeat.
Refreshment room for the staff that will now be out in the station rather than hidden behind the glass?










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