Lengthy rush hour queues are set to return for Brixton commuters from Monday, as refurbishment resumes on the Tube’s escalators.
TfL announced that work will take place on two of the escalators from January 12 until July. TfL said the escalators would be taken out of action one at time, stripped down and rebuilt by hand “to provide a safe and reliable service.”
Last year Brixton commuters described “complete chaos” while work took place on the first of the station’s three escalators.
TfL has advised people travelling during peak hours to use Stockwell station instead or the Brixton overground line to Victoria.
In November Brixton Blog created this handy guide for alternative travel.
I hope your alternative travel guide does not include buses as bus drivers are on strike tomorrow.
This station underwent building works and refurbishment from around 2000 to 2010 including the escalators. Yes, unbelievably it took nearly a decade to complete all this work. This included replacing the existing two escalators and installing a third instead of the stairs that used to be there. These escalators took years to sort out and here we are 5 years later being told that works are needed again. This station either closed for weeks or had a reduced escaltor service in 2003, 2006, 2009 and now in 2015. TFL have never explained why the original works took nearly a decade. They now should explain why the escalators at this station need to be rebuilt when this was all done some 12 years ago, or less. If previous TFL timescales at this station are repeated then there is no way this will be finished by July 2015 more like July 2018!!
The two outside escalators at Brixton were last refubished in 1998 and 1996, but were installed together in 1971. the middle escaltor was installed in 2004. The install time for the middle one was around 30 weeks.
no idea about other major outages
Somebody just wrote that the lack of investment is shameful. It is investment that is the cause at the moment.
Transport for London is just a mafia, I am not happy about this. Not happy, glad Boris Johnson will be out soon, anybody can do a better job as Mayor of London. Under-investment in South London’s transport is an outrage.