please empty your brain below
The lift from the western entrance to Liverpool Street has levels 0, 1 and 2. Level 0 is the tube booking hall a few steps down from the main concourse.

Sprout Eater | 08.06.22 - 7:07 a.m. | #

The amateurishness of those wonky lift stickers! They look like they’ve been applied by a three-year old. Is there any indication that they are only temporary?

Dan | 08.06.22 - 7:10 a.m. | #

Thanks for all that information! It gives me another reason not to travel this way.. 😳😳

Jo W | 08.06.22 - 7:12 a.m. | #

Paddington - but the mainline station IS below ground level, remember the old taxi rank was lower than Eastbourne Terrace not level with it.

Still Anon | 08.06.22 - 7:35 a.m. | #

Hampton Court maze is simpler than this!

Barry Coppock | 08.06.22 - 7:38 a.m. | #

Yep, tortuous is the word. My first trip on Crossrail was with a buggy at Liverpool Street. Four lifts and about eight minutes to get from the mainline station to the platform.

Harry | 08.06.22 - 8:23 a.m. | #

Using the lifts at complex stations is pretty challenging mentally. It's not limited to stations with crossrail of course.

I am led to wonder whether the buttons in the lifts, and the signs outside them, could be deprived of all mention of levels, just be labelled with lists of destinations (e.g. "Press this one for Northern Line southbound, access to street, and toilets"). That might work. And it is how the ambulant passageways, and the escalators, are labelled.

Malcolm of Kent | 08.06.22 - 8:54 a.m. | #

Clear as mud. Thanks. It all looked very confusing to me from what you wrote and Geoff Marshall and RMTransit put up on YouTube.

Btw, our public building were bathed in purple light last weekend to celebrate the opening of Crossrail. Well, I think that is right. Was the anything else happening?

Andrew | Homepage | 08.06.22 - 9:43 a.m. | #

I work in construction and this is very normal to me. Using level 0 as a sort of datum, large buildings often have split levels, mezzanines, lifts that only go to certain floors. Basement/below ground floors are minus numbers, above ground positive. It makes complete sense.

Wendy | 08.06.22 - 9:49 a.m. | #

A very different approach is taken by LU at Baker Street, where the lowest level (the southbound Jub/Bakerloo if memory serves) is 1 and everything increases from there with street level being 6 and the second floor of an office building being level 8.
The thing that really does my head in about your write-up is the concept of street level being above ground in chilly Canada. Maybe all the roads are on stilts.

Andrew S | 08.06.22 - 10:09 a.m. | #

Americans, and presumably Canadians set Ground/street level as level 1 or 1st floor - which I suppose it technically is ie it's the 1st level you step onto before moving to other levels!
\but confusing for those of us used to Ground being 0!

Cornish Cockney | 08.06.22 - 10:25 a.m. | #

Presumably there are visual displays and/or announcements on arrival at each level. Do these just give numbers, or something more helpful?

Kev | 08.06.22 - 10:34 a.m. | #

To be fair to the Americans, while they do usually show ground as first, they also typically have a star showing on the buttons for the ground floor level.

Philip | 08.06.22 - 11:35 a.m. | #

So al Barbican,

button 0 gives level 1,
button -4 gives level 5,
button -5 gives level 6 and
button -6 gives level 7.

They could have saved a lot of stickers by just making one that says

Button = 1 - Level
Level - 1 - Button

yerrong | 08.06.22 - 11:36 a.m. | #

In the one of the recent episodes of the "Hidden London Hangouts" in the last months I am sure one of the presenters explained the numbers over the "staff doors" and that they related to the depth in the station. maybe these relate to the minus station level numbers

Alsey | 08.06.22 - 1:06 p.m. | #

The incline lift at Liverpool Street was out of action for quite a few days over the bank holiday weekend. Hopefully they are more reliable than the Greenford incline lift

Occasional EL user | 08.06.22 - 1:49 p.m. | #

Once again Crossrail fails to measure up. For heaven's sake ditch the numbers and name the levels on/in the lifts.

Tones | 08.06.22 - 2:43 p.m. | #

A couple of months ago I was in an industrial lift in the middle of an old power station. I can't remember how many levels there were, but I do remember they were numbered after how many feet they were above ground level. The top level was numbered something like 175, the second level after that something like 140 and so on. I think ground level was zero, as you might expect. A similar scheme on the tallest skyscrapers could see level numbers in the thousands!

Chris | 08.06.22 - 3:49 p.m. | #

At least the lifts are labelled. Passing through Worcestershire Parkway recently I had no idea what floor to get out at - I had to guess that the mezzanine level was actually the level for the crosscountry platforms.

cjw714 | 08.06.22 - 4:25 p.m. | #

Those of us who regularly use Kings Cross with a weak-kneed companion are used to this minusry. What their diagrams don't show is the horizontal - walking - distance between the lifts, which at KX is often considerable.

Peter | 08.06.22 - 6:11 p.m. | #

To those suggesting naming rather than numbering the levels, I think the issue is that it is quite a bit more space intensive to provide a tactile representation of a floor name or description,, important for visually impaired users, a sizeable proportion of whom would be unable to read Braille.

Robert | 09.06.22 - 3:19 a.m. | #

Also the reason that the buttons and floors are numbered, nomatter how seemingly illogical, is for emergency scenarios.
Try telling the person on the other end of the unsatisfactory alarm button service that they should send the firefighters to the level with the westbound central line mezzanine floor rather than minus four.

JP minimus | 15.06.22 - 12:41 a.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy