Tube station design error - accountability

[miklcct]

From a quote in London Rail related to Paddington station (emphasis added by me),

Its the fact Paddington tube station has escalators! AND emergency stairs! Oh but it’s got those even now, what’s the game eh? Back in 1913 this was the start of what one could plausibly describe as several negatives for the tube system. One of those alas resulted in a mortarium that banned disabled people from using the tube and that was because they couldn’t use escalators. This restriction was finally lifted in 1993 (Hansard).

A guy known as Bumper Harris was reputedly employed a couple of years earlier used to ease people’s fears of the brand new (and then experimental) escalators at Earl’s Court. (A station that has doubtless retained its lifts whilst having escalators as an add-on – and that should have been the model to follow and not Paddington’s). Whether ‘Bumper Harris’ happened isn’t for certain – however the modus at the time would have been to allay abled people’s fears of using something other than the lifts. And not in a million years to promote any idea that disabled people could use the tube! Bumper Harris did in fact exist but uncertainty on the story leaves one with just an idea of what actually went on. Whether Bumper Harris had indeed demonstrated that these new escalators could be used with ease, the ensuing construction of numerous escalator banks across the tube system soon caused London Underground to place limits on who could thus access the tube system.

Indemnity forms for which the blind, ‘invalids in chairs’ and others for example were issued forcing people to sign these in order to even use the London underground. These forms essentially signed away any rights should they use the tube and some mishap of some sort should occur. The London Passenger Transport Board was quite resolute there should be no easy means by which disabled people could use the tube.

So there was a period of 80 years when disabled people could not allow use the tube, all started from the 1913 design error, and they will now take centuries and billions of pounds to rectify.

I would like to understand why was the original 1913 design ever approved right at the beginning, given that older station used lifts as the mean to access the platforms? Century-old stations already had lift access and level boarding which comply with today's accessibility standard.

Back in 1913,

• how did disabled people travel on public transport in general?
• why didn't such poor design result in a lawsuit stopping the construction of such new design, forcing the continuation of the old way of using lifts to access stations?

Then, in 1993, as the 1913 design was recognised as a mistake, why didn't the discrimination law force TfL to rebuild all affected stations between 1913 and 1993 by a specified deadline?

 

[StephenHunter]

I would like to understand why was the original 1913 design ever approved right at the beginning, given that older station used lifts as the mean to access the platforms? Century-old stations already had lift access and level boarding which comply with today's accessibility standard.

They generally didn't have the "street to platform" level access that would get you a white wheelchair user symbol on today's Tube map. The lifts got you down to the general platform area, but you would still have a "footbridge" to get you to at least one of the platforms.

See this map of Down Street.

There were also stairs in the ticket office area in some cases.

 

[CBlue]

From a quote in London Rail related to Paddington station (emphasis added by me),



So there was a period of 80 years when disabled people could not allow use the tube, all started from the 1913 design error, and they will now take centuries and billions of pounds to rectify.

I would like to understand why was the original 1913 design ever approved right at the beginning, given that older station used lifts as the mean to access the platforms? Century-old stations already had lift access and level boarding which comply with today's accessibility standard.

Back in 1913,

• how did disabled people travel on public transport in general?
• why didn't such poor design result in a lawsuit stopping the construction of such new design, forcing the continuation of the old way of using lifts to access stations?

Then, in 1993, as the 1913 design was recognised as a mistake, why didn't the discrimination law force TfL to rebuild all affected stations between 1913 and 1993 by a specified deadline?

This really has a feel of you adding 2+2 and getting 5, in honesty. Back in 1913 there was effectively no such thing as disabled rights or campaign groups in the way we know them today, people were normally confined to asylums. I suggest reading this for some background: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1832-1914/
It was only with the enormous increase in disabled serviceman coming back from the First Minor Disagreement in Europe from 1914-1918 that things started to change. Historic England had a page on that too, FYI: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1914-1945/war/

 

[dosxuk]

why didn't the discrimination law force TfL to rebuild all affected stations between 1913 and 1993 by a specified deadline?

Because that would result in the closure of the system.

 

[StephenHunter]

Because that would result in the closure of the system.

I guess there's a requirement for "reasonable adjustments" in older systems and that would not be a reasonable one.

This really has a feel of you adding 2+2 and getting 5, in honesty. Back in 1913 there was effectively no such thing as disabled rights or campaign groups in the way we know them today, people were normally confined to asylums. I suggest reading this for some background: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1832-1914/
It was only with the enormous increase in disabled serviceman coming back from the First Minor Disagreement in Europe from 1914-1918 that things started to change. Historic England had a page on that too, FYI: https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1914-1945/war/

You did have disabled servicemen before that - the Boer War was ongoing when the Central London Railway opened - but they were rarer. Back then, getting limbs blown off was far more likely to kill you, either from blood loss or later infection.

 

[Belperpete]

As the previous poster said, the lifts generally got you to a kind of mezzanine level, from where stairs got you down to platform level. Having the lifts get you down to platform level would have required greater separation between the running lines, and so greater tunneling expense. Having the lifts at platform level was a much later innovation.

The lifts soon proved inadequate to cope with the numbers of people, and the congestion they caused was considered a safety risk. Which was why most were replaced by escalators. These were far more popular with the public as they meant you didn't have to wait for a lift, or suffer the sardine crush once it arrived.

You are looking at it from a modern perspective. There was no disability (or any other) discrimination legislation back in 1913, so there was no basis for bringing any lawsuit. Not just public transport, but public and private buildings, courts, theatres, etc were not designed with disabled people in mind. I seem to recall that wheelchair users were banned from many theatres and cinemas, for example, as them blocking the aisles was considered a fire risk.

It wasn't a design error, in those days things were designed around the average person. It was considered the individual's responsibility to cope. In the pre-NHS, pre-welfare state era, the attitude was very much that it was up to each individual to cope with whatever life threw at them. This of course made it very difficult for disabled people.

The reason why TfL hasn't rebuilt all its stations is very simple: money. Government has not allocated it the funds to do so. Quite the reverse, for decades it was starved of funding, and the tube network went into serious decline through lack of investment, with consequences such as the Kings Cross fire.

 

[miklcct]

I guess there's a requirement for "reasonable adjustments" in older systems and that would not be a reasonable one.

Was the technology to retrofit all stations with wheelchair access not available in 1993, or couldn't it be installed in the existing network? The Hong Kong network was also modelled after the London one, especially the Victoria line, (although full sized rolling stocks were used), and access was retrofitted into the whole network afterwards to improve passenger experience.

There are still a number of key interchanges which are problematic for wheelchairs, for example, West Hampstead Underground is steps only although the Overground station is retrofitted, while Kilburn has lift access but Brondesbury remains steps only, so interchange remains not possible between the Jubilee and the Overground.

Oxford Circus is another example of a key interchange not accessible as well, if the Government forced TfL to rebuild it (by means of fining the operator after the specific deadline every day - the same would apply to Network Rail, or other infrastructure owner as well - the deadline can be set by stages sorted by the station usage) the passenger experience would have been greatly improved.

 

[Magdalia]

I would like to understand why was the original 1913 design ever approved right at the beginning, given that older station used lifts as the mean to access the platforms? Century-old stations already had lift access and level boarding which comply with today's accessibility standard.

Back in 1913,

• how did disabled people travel on public transport in general?

Back in 1913 most people would not have had step free access to get in and out of their own homes.

We had a General Election earlier this year. If you paid any attention to it, then you will be aware that UK politicians frequently refer to "what they are hearing on the doorsteps". It would be very rare for a house not to have a doorstep, and, generally speaking, the grander the house, the more steps it would have.

I suggest that you look at some of the Victorian and Edwardian houses near where you live.

 

[stuu]

It's not a design error. Virtually nothing built anywhere on the planet before about 1970 even considered disabled access. Even dropped kerbs on streets are a fairly recent thing

 

[contrex]

I read somewhere (1) he was called 'Peg-Leg Harris' (2) he was paid to go up and down the new-fangled escalators until a mother was heard to say to her fascinated little boy, 'You'll end up like that if you go on those things'. The inconsistencies maybe suggest it was made up, no?

 

[StephenHunter]

I read somewhere (1) he was called 'Peg-Leg Harris' (2) he was paid to go up and down the new-fangled escalators until a mother was heard to say to her fascinated little boy, 'You'll end up like that if you go on those things'. The inconsistencies maybe suggest it was made up, no?

I would suggest asking the London Transport Museum about that.

 

[edwin_m]

As the previous poster said, the lifts generally got you to a kind of mezzanine level, from where stairs got you down to platform level. Having the lifts get you down to platform level would have required greater separation between the running lines, and so greater tunneling expense. Having the lifts at platform level was a much later innovation.

I don't think increasing the tunnel separation would have increased the tunneling costs significantly, as the tunnels are independent structures.

I believe the most likely reason was that most of the deep-level tubes were built beneath streets because of the legal and financial complications if they went underneath property. Nearly all stations had a surface building, which obviously couldn't be in the middle of the street so was at one side or even in a side street. Hence the lift down from this building almost never landed between the tracks, instead landing above* platform level with a short passage leading to steps down onto the platform. True step-free access to the platform would have needed a second set of lifts.

*Fun fact - at Essex Road it was and still is below platform level! There's a suggestion on the Web somewhere that this was because the geological layer just above would have been difficult to tunnel a passage through.

 

[SynthD]

I would like to understand why was the original 1913 design ever approved right at the beginning, given that older station used lifts as the mean to access the platforms? Century-old stations already had lift access and level boarding which comply with today's accessibility standard.

Building approval was rudimentary back then. A retired general might carry out a one day visit and judge it on the spot. Level boarding on the older parts of the tube is often only possible with a Harrington Hump, first deployed at Harrington in 2008.

 

[miklcct]

Building approval was rudimentary back then. A retired general might carry out a one day visit and judge it on the spot. Level boarding on the older parts of the tube is often only possible with a Harrington Hump, first deployed at Harrington in 2008.

Maybe that's true in the deep level, however, sub-surface lines generally have level boarding even on the oldest part of the Metropolitan line, like Euston Square. It is now categorised as Class A step free street to train and is suitable for all wheelchair users.

Back in 1913 most people would not have had step free access to get in and out of their own homes.

We had a General Election earlier this year. If you paid any attention to it, then you will be aware that UK politicians frequently refer to "what they are hearing on the doorsteps". It would be very rare for a house not to have a doorstep, and, generally speaking, the grander the house, the more steps it would have.

I suggest that you look at some of the Victorian and Edwardian houses near where you live.

Of course that's true if the home is above ground, but a century ago, before mass urbanisation, didn't most people live in houses which were built at the ground level?

I'm now more interested in the life of disabled people back in 1913 compared to the modern era. City commuting already existed but the option of low floor buses didn't exist back then, how did they generally commute to jobs in the City?

 

[edwin_m]

I read somewhere (1) he was called 'Peg-Leg Harris' (2) he was paid to go up and down the new-fangled escalators until a mother was heard to say to her fascinated little boy, 'You'll end up like that if you go on those things'. The inconsistencies maybe suggest it was made up, no?

"Bumper" Harris. Plenty of results on the web.

 

[Gloster]

I read somewhere (1) he was called 'Peg-Leg Harris' (2) he was paid to go up and down the new-fangled escalators until a mother was heard to say to her fascinated little boy, 'You'll end up like that if you go on those things'. The inconsistencies maybe suggest it was made up, no?

According to Brewer’s Dictionary of London Phrase & Fable (Willey, Chambers, 2010 p.b.) the story is pretty close to an urban myth. It states that the London Transport Museum says that William ‘Bumper’ Harris, a tunnelling engineer who had lost a leg on an accident, did take a ride on the first escalator (*) at Earls Court station in order to prove its safety, but was not employed to do so repeatedly.

* - There was an escalator built five years earlier (in 1906) at Holloway Road, but it seems never to have carried the public. It was a spiral one and is thought to have been regarded as unsafe.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Some tube stations have one line more or less below the other so the lift only went as far as a mezzanine with steps up or down to the two platforms.
Lifts are hopelessly incapable of moving large numbers of people plus escalators do not really trap people when they grind to a halt.
Most sub surface stations (Circle, District, Metropolitain) get by with only stairs from the ground level to the platform level lifts and escalators only existed for the major part of the vertical jouney not for the bits at the top and bottom. Many tube stations that have escsalotors still have stairs for the last bit at the top typically where the ticket hall is under a road (example Victoria although there are lifts there).

Bumper Harris - I have seen a video of him or someone showing a one legged person happily negotiating the moving escalator.

As others have said. It was no design error as such. It was not until the 1970s (iirc) in te UK that designers had to consider the disabled.

In a nutshell most of the London underground system was built before accessibility for disabled people was considered important.

 

[boiledbeans2]

I find this a strange question. Obviously, the answer is that it was a design of that time. If the tube was built today, then accessiblity issues would be addressed (e.g. Elizabeth Line core).

Perhaps the follow-up question would be, why were non-low-floor buses approved in 1913?

 

[Llanigraham]

Perhaps the follow-up question would be, why were non-low-floor buses approved in 1913?

For the same reasons that have already been mentioned; there was no compulsion to do so.
You cannot compare modern ideals to a period over a hundred years ago,

 

[bramling]

I don't think increasing the tunnel separation would have increased the tunneling costs significantly, as the tunnels are independent structures.

I believe the most likely reason was that most of the deep-level tubes were built beneath streets because of the legal and financial complications if they went underneath property. Nearly all stations had a surface building, which obviously couldn't be in the middle of the street so was at one side or even in a side street. Hence the lift down from this building almost never landed between the tracks, instead landing above* platform level with a short passage leading to steps down onto the platform. True step-free access to the platform would have needed a second set of lifts.

*Fun fact - at Essex Road it was and still is below platform level! There's a suggestion on the Web somewhere that this was because the geological layer just above would have been difficult to tunnel a passage through.

This is exactly the reason. It is a common myth that Tube tunnels *had* to be beneath streets. They didn’t, but if beneath property then the railway company would have had to buy out that property.

In fact, the C&SLR did manage to provide ramp access to many of its original stations as a feature of the design.

However all the later Tubes tended to come down to a level above the platforms with the final access being by stairs. The exception was the Piccadilly Line between King’s Cross and Finsbury Park, where the tunnels were beneath the GN Railway, and there was space for the lifts to reach platform level.

As for accountability, accessibility just wasn’t a thing then, and as the early railways were privately built there was no compulsion to provide it anyway.

 

[Spartacus]

a tunnelling engineer who had lost a leg on an accident,

This does touch on something from earlier, even without wars there quite a lot of people with physical disabilities around, most of them through work related injuries, from the days when accidents, as long as they didn't kill or maim too many people, were seen as 'just one of those things', (many regulations you might not even notice, such as doors of big buildings opening outwards, stem from disasters) and people affected just kinda had to get by, the thinking was if you needed help someone was either expected to offer it, or you asked for it. Myself I can remember a number of times help physically lifting someone in their wheelchair up or down stairs in buildings built long before any other option was provided. Same went for pushchairs. Was it the 313s that appeared in a promotional film demonstrating their wheelchair accessibility? No ramp, the wheelchair was positioned so it's large rear wheel was against the step in, them physically moved into the train by a member of staff. Seems weird these days, though sometime I think it does have some benefits over a ramp.

 

[The exile]

In comparison with many of their European successors, the builders of the early London tube lines were in general unable to benefit from the building of great boulevards under which to put their lines. This means that the access is mych more complicated - compare Berlin where steps (and now lifts) often lead straight down from street to platform and then look at London streets and work out how you’d do the same!

They generally didn't have the "street to platform" level access that would get you a white wheelchair user symbol on today's Tube map. The lifts got you down to the general platform area, but you would still have a "footbridge" to get you to at least one of the platforms.

See this map of Down Street.

There were also stairs in the ticket office area in some cases.

And of course the lifts weren’t there for disabled access - but simply because being made to come up 100+ stairs would have put people off using the tube at all - and escalators hadn’t been invented.

 

[Falcon1200]

why didn't the discrimination law force TfL to rebuild all affected stations between 1913 and 1993 by a specified deadline?

How much would that have cost, and where would the money come from?

 

[Taunton]

Was the technology to retrofit all stations with wheelchair access not available in 1993, or couldn't it be installed in the existing network?

The installation of step-free access, by lift etc, at just one Underground station, Green Park, which was done particularly for the 2012 Olympics, cost well over £100m. Even there it's not a brilliant outcome, requiring much transit along passageways and multiple lifts to get around.

 

[edwin_m]

As mentioned, providing lift access to platform level in an underground station can be very difficult and is usually only done as part of a major rebuild. One reason is that escalators slope, so the platforms may not be underneath the surface access - many surface entrances had to move when the station was converted from lifts to escalators.

All London buses have had low floors and wheelchair spaces for around 20 years, although poor provision at stops and congestion preventing buses lining up with the kerb may make this less useful than it first sounds. Part of the motivation for TfL looking at trams in central London in the mid-2000s was to provide an accessible alternative to the Tube, but there were many practical difficulties and Johnson cancelled these schemes soon after taking office.

 

[ScottGallagher]

Some of the Piccadilly line stations actually had lift to platform level.from built, Caledonian Road being an example and i think the closed York Road did too , this is more of a bonus than anything as the constraints of the surrounding land permitted it so certainly not considerations of disability issues!

 

[Helvellyn]

We had a General Election earlier this year. If you paid any attention to it, then you will be aware that UK politicians frequently refer to "what they are hearing on the doorsteps". It would be very rare for a house not to have a doorstep, and, generally speaking, the grander the house, the more steps it would have.

I suggest that you look at some of the Victorian and Edwardian houses near where you live.

My 2000 built house still has a doorstep - it wasn't until the 2000s that level access to houses become a legal requirement, which also includes no raised thresholds (the lip at at the bottom of older doors).

For the OP wheelchair spaces first came in on new build BR stock from the 1970s in the form of a removable seat and table in a First Class coach. The first "disabled" toilets came in during the late 1980s but were no where near the standard of Universal Access Toilets of today, and where just in Standard Class (I think it was the GNER Mallard refurbishments that saw the Mark 4s get this in First, and the Virgin Voyagers and Pendalinos were the first new build with proper First Class provision for customers with disabilities).

 

[The exile]

My 2000 built house still has a doorstep - it wasn't until the 2000s that level access to houses become a legal requirement, which also includes no raised thresholds (the lip at at the bottom of older doors).

For the OP wheelchair spaces first came in on new build BR stock from the 1970s in the form of a removable seat and table in a First Class coach. The first "disabled" toilets came in during the late 1980s but were no where near the standard of Universal Access Toilets of today, and where just in Standard Class (I think it was the GNER Mallard refurbishments that saw the Mark 4s get this in First, and the Virgin Voyagers and Pendalinos were the first new build with proper First Class provision for customers with disabilities).

There was the embarrassing moment when BR were launching a product for disabled people (can't remember whether it was the Railcard or, more likely, the first wheelchair spaces somewhere other than the guard's van, and discovered that the "first customer"'s wheelchair got stuck. IIRC, they'd been given the correct specifications for the standard NHS wheelchair, but not been told that they had a tendency to "spread" over time.
Certainly back in 1913 the idea of people who were a) sufficiently disabled to require lifts rather than escalators or steps and b) able to afford tube fares, leading anything like what we would now consider an independent life would have seemed a very "niche" idea indeed.

 

[Gloster]

There was the embarrassing moment when BR were launching a product for disabled people (can't remember whether it was the Railcard or, more likely, the first wheelchair spaces somewhere other than the guard's van, and discovered that the "first customer"'s wheelchair got stuck. IIRC, they'd been given the correct specifications for the standard NHS wheelchair, but not been told that they had a tendency to "spread" over time.
Certainly back in 1913 the idea of people who were a) sufficiently disabled to require lifts rather than escalators or steps and b) able to afford tube fares, leading anything like what we would now consider an independent life would have seemed a very "niche" idea indeed.

I have a feeling that it was the Mark III coaches, or at least a modification of them. Embarrassingly, I think Sir Peter Parker was there (and, worse in retrospect, possibly a well-known TV personality and former DJ who must not be named).

EDIT: looking at a couple of photos, could it have been the launch of the Disabled Persons Railcard?

 

[Starmill]

Before the Convention Rights became domestic law it wasn't even that easy to rely on your rights to a reasonable adjustment of a ramp or lift access from the side of the public highway to the vehicle, or for an alternative means of transport that was accessible. Obviously the right did exist before the Human Rights Act but this gave domestic law their full implementation. This was really late, not until October 2000.

Prior to the Convention's original date in force in 1953, the position wasn't perhaps codified in law in a way that would force action. Arguably the position around discrimination wasn't even really that established in law although I'll let others with more knowledge comment on the pre-1953 rights.