Leyton station upgrade

[sjoh]

Leyton station step free upgrade is to commence this month

The Deputy Mayor for Transport, Seb Dance, said: “It’s great that TfL will soon begin work to make Leyton Tube station step-free, alongside other improvements. These works will not just improve accessibility, but also support major housing developments in the local area, as well as boosting local businesses and inclusive economic growth.”

The new ticket hall will be over three times the size of the old one, with eight passenger gates, compared to the existing five gates. The replacement staircases will land near the centre of the platforms rather than at the western end, meaning that crowding is likely to be reduced, and boarding/alighting will be less skewed.

Whilst it's long overdue, I can't help but feel the promised increase in capacity may be a little exaggerated.

The station currently has 5 ticket barriers that more or less open onto the road bridge over the A12 and running lines. The plans see the emergency exit space to the north of the station being built out as the new entrance, with 8 ticket barriers more set back from the road but in a narrower (Albeit longer) ticket hall.

Given the intention is to close the current ticket hall when it's finished, I can't see 3 extra barriers in a narrower space being a particularly noteworthy capacity increase.

Surely keeping the "old" part open and purely for westbound traffic, and opening the new bit for step free and eastbound traffic would be a better use of space?

Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts!

 

[starlight73]

Depends how the barriers are used - as an example, say in the morning rush hour, the peak flow of passengers is going in. Maybe they currently use 3 out of 5 barriers for going in. But with the new hall, if they have 8 barriers they might be able to use 6 out of them for going in, which would be doubling the rate of passenger flow. [these are made up numbers, I don’t know what they currently do.]

plus, repositioning the stairs to the middle of the platform would mean avoiding queues building up on the staircase maybe

i think your idea of 2 entrances is ideal, but TfL would end up paying a lot of money to maintain 2 exits (cleaning, barrier staff, barrier maintenance, ticket machines etc.) and I would guess that they think the number of passengers at Leyton currently doesn’t justify that.

 

[GFE]

Starlight is quite right, the design should be trying to alleviate the "pinch points" that constrain the passenger flows, particularly alleviating platform congestion. The outline design showed repositioning of the stairs nearer the middle of the platform which is a good start, widening the stair capacity and taking them further from the platform edge are all likely techniques to expect in the detail design.
Is the detail scope/layouts available yet? (interesting what done WRT station office, supervision of station entrance/gates/public areas & public toilet facilities).

 

[sjoh]

Starlight is quite right, the design should be trying to alleviate the "pinch points" that constrain the passenger flows, particularly alleviating platform congestion. The outline design showed repositioning of the stairs nearer the middle of the platform which is a good start, widening the stair capacity and taking them further from the platform edge are all likely techniques to expect in the detail design.
Is the detail scope/layouts available yet? (interesting what done WRT station office, supervision of station entrance/gates/public areas & public toilet facilities).

All that I could find available is in the 3D renders on ianvisits' website (it's why I chose to link to that particular article!). As far as I can tell public facilities remain the same but it's unclear from floorplan if station office remains in the publicly closed off old station building or moved to a new space. Two of my main concerns are that 1) the new locations of the staircases now create a "backflow effect" - not such a big deal on the westbound platform ( the main commuting flow into town in the morning) as there won't be a significant number of people alighting at Leyton) but perhaps more significant in the evening as people move along the platform and then have to basically do a 180 to move up the stairs (Leyton station is an incredibly peak-demand-led station and gets uncomfortably-to-dangerously busy between 17:30-19:00).
My second main concern is that I'm not sure the new overbridge is actually wide enough to accommodate conflicting flows of passengers from the Westbound platform.
A third but perhaps less significant concern is that funneling passengers down a narrower station entrance may have more serious implications than now in the event of an emergency. Whilst the current set up is far far from ideal, i'd argue that people queuing and potentially blocking the pavement outside the station (and also potentially the road itself) is probably safer than people being funneled through a narrower entrance (even if technically larger by floorspace) with no obvious emergency exit in the event of a crushload or other emergency.

 

[Blurb]

One of the sometimes overlooked uses of Leyton Station is for Orient fans - the rebuild uses the space that is opened up to allow football crowds to access the east bound platform. I wonder how the proposed layout works for the football scenario.
Note: if you go back long enough in time there was entrance/exit and a bridge at the east end of the platforms.

 

[riceuten]

Note: if you go back long enough in time there was entrance/exit and a bridge at the east end of the platforms.

I used it in 1984 when I lived in the locale. I recall a ticket office as well - if you bought your weekly travelcard there, it was marked Leyton (B)

 

[simple simon]

I dislike what is planned at Leyton

It moves the platform entrance from close to the road to halfway along the platform (ie: much longer walk between the train and the street)

It does not reinstate the station entrance at the other end of the platforms that was closed when a new road was built.

My photo shows this station entrance on a snowy day in circa 1980 - taken using a 110 film camera and apologies, it is slightly blurred - I was probably shivering in the cold.

 

[tripleseis]

I think there are plans to redevelop the retail park opposite into a mixed residential area at some point in the future. Not sure how these plans fit in with the station rebuild. Leyton will become a much busier station if it happens.

 

[sjoh]

I dislike what is planned at Leyton

It moves the platform entrance from close to the road to halfway along the platform (ie: much longer walk between the train and the street)

It does not reinstate the station entrance at the other end of the platforms that was closed when a new road was built.

My photo shows this station entrance on a snowy day in circa 1980 - taken using a 110 film camera and apologies, it is slightly blurred - I was probably shivering in the cold.

I assume this was before the A12 was built alongside and the Langthorne Road footbridge is the bridge you're referring to? I'd assumed the northern entrance/exit people were referring to was the emergency exit along an alleyway out onto Goodall Rd! Had no idea it was a fairly significant structure!