Thursday, March 18, 2010

Tube Ticket Office Closure Document Leaked

There have been a number of rumours about a document which showed TfL's plans to close a number of London Underground ticket offices. Last week LU stated again there would be no ticket office closures. However, yesterday's Mayor's Question Time, the question of office closures was put to Boris once more. His reply: "The first and most important point to make is that no ticket offices will be closed, alright? They're not going to be closed."

Boris signing petition against ticket office closures
Picture on poster being used by union TSSA in demo at LU's headquarters

At which point a document put together by London Underground on the 10th March was revealed which proposed closing the following:

Jubilee Line - Canary Wharf (East), Waterloo (Main – Excess), Waterloo (Shell), Wembley Park (Bridge Road)

District Line - Earl’s Court (Warwick Road), Aldgate East (East), Cannon Street

Central Line - Chancery Lane (Saturday), South Woodford (West), Woodford (West), Monument (mentioned but TfL claim this is a typo)

Bakerloo Line - Charing Cross (Trafalgar)

TfL have confirmed the document is genuine said that all closures would be open to consultation.

There's also some weird decisions around opening hours at major tourist hubs like Heathrow, Victoria, Euston and King's Cross - see BorisWatch.

London Reconnections has done an excellent job of highlighting the keypoints of the document.

Labour Assembly Member Navin Shah who has been a long time campaigner against ticket office closures told the BBC:

"Boris Johnson has misled Londoners. These documents released today show that he was not telling the truth. Several ticket offices will close, others will close for most of the week and large numbers of offices will see their opening hours drastically cut. Nearly five hundred ticket office staff will be lost under these Conservative cuts and many stations will feel less safe and less friendly as a result."

Torytroll concludes: "Asked about the Mayor's comments today a spokesperson said:

"This Mayor takes his promises to Londoners extremely seriously. Every station that has a ticket office will continue to have one."

Even if there's nobody actually in them".

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