The new Deptford Station
The new Deptford railway station is ready - and very nice it is too.
Bright and airy to the point of draughtiness, it is now fully accessible via a lift to each platform. Unlike its predecessor, it is bright and well-lit and not-unpleasant smelling.
Delivered on-time a year after work began, it looks like a good investment by Lewisham Council, who contributed £5m to get it off the drawing board, following years of procrastination. The refurbished tunnel and view over the changing Deptford skyline are nice touches, although both are currently surrounded by piles of masonry.
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On the Deptford forum, Gema is seeking contributors for a new local website http://deptfordhighstreet.co.uk/
32 comments:
Oh super, another vertiginous station I won't be able to use.
It would be nice if architects designed for people.
Why can't you use it?
Ian, how would one design a station for a raised railway line that isn't "vertiginous" (ie: goes up to the railway line from ground level)? It has lifts to both platforms.
Are all railways in London to be restricted to those that don't have stairs, escalators or lifts? DDA compliance and Railway Accesability ask for "reasonable" adjustments and design features. That's why some older stations have platform humps so that wheelchair users can access a train but TfL don't blow their budget having to make raise all platforms or scrap older trains early.
Railways are a compromise, always have and probably always will.
When will the brockley station get it upgrade. I find it medieval that wheel chairs and yummy mummies with kids do not have an easy access to the western platform.
Someone thought it would be a good idea to take down the existing ramp on the eastern platform (itself built in the 1990s) and replace it with another ramp. Madness.
'Ian On The Hill's comment has, I feel, not been fully understood. The reason the station is 'vertiginous' to people who cannot stand heights is that the stairs to the raised platforms are not enclosed. The current mania for all-glass buildings is a big problem for those with acrophobia. Many of the Docklands railway stations are unusable to such people for the same reason.
I think this is one of those situations where people with self-diagnosed conditions need to grow up and walk the stairs like the rest of us.
And all those with claustraphobia should also 'grow up' and join us in the darkest, narrowest tunnels we can find???
Perhaps Ian could come back and actually explain what he means, rather than leave us all to argue over a hypothetical. Anyway, if it's fear of open spaces that's the problem, then what's wrong with a lift?
The old ramp would never be negotiable by a wheelchair. It was too steep. If the station becomes step free the ramp will already be there and be compliant. The project was for a common, the new compliant ramp was incorporated. We now have a nice common AND a usable ramp.
Everything is good in the world.
They should have put it on the other side. In the old days, disablists used to go up the ramp no worries.
a) they couldn't have put it on the other side
b) as has been explained a million times, the project was aimed at opening up Brockley Common, which is on the east side. Now we have a lovely communal garden. And access on the west side, which is a completely different issue, is being sorted in 2013. All good.
Ooh, the apartments in the third shot look very nice!
Ian did explain what he meant in a discussion about - I think - the Deptford Lounge.
And don't dismiss acrophobia so lightly as self diagnosed and tell sufferers to "grow up". As with any condition where there is a "spectrum" some at the mild end might be malingerers looking, sub-consciously or not, for an excuse while for others it is genuninely disabling.
It is not much to ask for the impression of a safe barrier from floor waist height rather than the present architectural fashion of floor to ceiling glass.
Claustraphobes are lame ass punks.
Well I don't like glass stairs and I'm offended by lifts, so what is there for me?
Come on designers!
These glass public buildings flow from a panopticonisstic design aesthetic.
Long words don't make it any more user friendly.
And what about the effect of being in a greenhouse in the summer and an ice-cave in the winter?
Many of them are quite supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as a consequence.
Should be made of granite with a thatched roof like in the olden days. The 20th Century is a bad dream to some of us, I remeber 10 of our family expiring from consumption despite a good dose or arsenic and some judicious bleeding. Ah, thems were the days.
Only just to back to this one, but Mike and Tamsin answered this as well as I could.
Aawful lot of people, who are not acrophobic, don't appreciate architecture designed to make them feel uneasy and unsafe. I think I've mentioned before that about 1 in 5 of us have some probelms with heights and it's now considered to be one of the 2 or 3 innate fears humans have.
Designing public buildings like funfare rides? Silly.
of that 1 in 5 how many would be uneasy using a building of that type? Im terified of heights and have no issues with it, not very scientific I know but I doubt 20% of the population find it unusable or even give it a second thought.
Are you using it or looking at it? And will you feel the same when the hoardings have gone?
Even 10% having issues is a large number of people whose lives could be made easier with slightly more thoughtful design.
If you think Deptford Station looks like a funfair ride you've been to some really crap funfairs.
Stick a decent job at the end of the line then we'll see who feels offended by using it.
Honestly - I would say "what happened to Dunkirk spirit" but that would be offensive to those who were actually there. It's a building ffs.
So have it designed for as many people as possible to use comfortabably and to be economical to keep warm(ish) in winter and cool in summer, not so the pictures look good in some architect's portfolio.
All reasonable people will enjoy its use I can assure you.
Tamsin, that is entirely subjective. You don't like glass and anything over three stories, fine.
No, to my surprise I quite like the Shard and I love the Millenium Wheel. But one can choose whether or not to go on them and the air con. in the Shard is not paid for out of public service funds. I just sympathise with people like Ian and my brother who get twitchy with no visible barrier to stop them falling and took slight objection to the impatience of the Anonymous I was replying to.
(Ironically my brother's fear of heights came on after a near accident at the bottom of a gold mine.)
Stick a million quid at the top of the stairs and I bet folks wouldn't be so hesitant to walk up them.
Okay so Deptford station is glass and steel and three flights up, but there are two lifts. Many of the stations on the DLR eastern edge have stairs that are so steep that they might as well be ladders. True there is also a lift, but it is often tiny making you feel really hemmed in.
Anyway the new Deptford station is much better than the feotid one it replaces.
has anyone ever thought to mention an access point at the west end of the platforms? or would that be too convenient for passengers living on that side... passenger convenience is rarely tantamount.
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