There is an article in the current issue of The Spectator by Andrew Gilligan, attacking a project to make Green Park station, an important London Underground interchange, wheelchair accessible or, in London Transport jargon, to provide ‘step-free’ access from the street to the platforms. Currently, very little of London’s rail network is wheelchair-accessible; there is the eastern section of the Jubilee line, the entire Docklands Light Railway and the entire Tramlink, but beyond that, it’s a few stations here and there, not including the stations serving most of the main line terminals. Andrew Gilligan thinks providing access at Green Park is a huge waste of money. I disagree.
To start with, there is currently not one station in the West End which is wheelchair accessible. Green Park is admittedly on the fringes of the West End, but it’s within reasonable distance of Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street, and serves three lines, so it is a strategic location. Anyone coming from south London can take a bus (and nearly all London buses are accessible now, when the space set aside for wheelchairs is not taken up by a pushchair) to Brixton station and get off at Green Park. It extends the accessible part of the Jubilee Line to the West End and also fills a gap for the Piccadilly Line, on which there are several accessible stations on the open west London section, including Earl’s Court, Hammersmith, Acton Town, Sudbury Town, Hillingdon, Uxbridge, Hounslow East and West and all the Heathrow stations.
One reason why he thinks the whole idea of “step-free access” is pointless is that, to get onto the tubes, you have to go up “a step — insurmountable to wheelchairs”. Well, perhaps, unless the wheelchair user is in a group, or can find any helpful member of the public to give him or her a hand, or unless staff have been trained to get wheelchairs onto the trains. But some wheelchair users can actually tip their chairs back and move them forward, so as to mount kerbs and small steps. You can see it demonstrated in this video. Whether this woman could get on a Tube with that technique I’m not sure.
Another reason is that only 3,500 disabled people supposedly live in the City of Westminster, the borough in which Green Park sits. Well, hello Andrew, Green Park is actually in central London, and people want to go to the centre of town for reasons other than living there. Most of the City of Westminster is served by Tube stations other than Green Park (the borough also includes a large chunk of suburbia), and besides Westminster (a long walk from Green Park, although convenient for Trafalgar Square) no other station in the City of Westminster is accessible. It would probably be cheaper to provide all the disabled people in inner and outer Westminster with cars (and by the way, many of the more severely disabled will require vans, not cars) than to make all the stations accessible, but it would certainly not be cheaper to do this for all the disabled people in London who might want to visit the West End than to make one strategic station accessible.
On the second page of the article, he makes what might be a valid point about the state of the Dial-a-Ride scheme, which is underfunded and bound by allegedly stupid rules, such as a six-mile limit (which would preclude any journey from an outer suburban location to central London) and which has been known to prohibit passengers’ spouses from travelling with them. Well, perhaps Transport for London might provide transport for people who can’t use the buses to get from their houses to the nearest commercial centre, which might not be central London but, say, Enfield or Kingston, but providing a chauffer-driven van to take every wheelchair user who ever wants to go from New Malden or Orpington to the West End is not economical. Making buses, and some strategic stations and all new lines, accessible is. Besides, vans can only take so many people, particularly if they have had seats removed to make way for lifts, ramps or multiple wheelchairs, and if a wheelchair user wants to join a large party on a trip to the theatre, it makes more sense for them to take the same mode of transport as everyone else rather than get separated from them, even if they all have to take a slightly longer way round.
On page 3, he argues that the Tube is in any case “a service which, even for the able-bodied, is an exercise in low-level misery”. However, that’s only when it breaks down, which is often but not on most journeys. Yes, getting stuck in the tunnel is frustrating, but so is getting stuck in a jam on a bus whose driver won’t open the door even when there’s no prospect of any movement and the stop is within sight. Even so, a person in a wheelchair might prefer to get stuck in a tunnel with his or her friends than get separated from them. He cites Richard Parry, “acting head of the Underground”, as saying that it’s an “Olympic” commitment but ultimately admitting that Green Park’s value is symbolic. However, it’s not. It’s an important route into the West End for people with disabilities. That’s real value.
Andrew Gilligan writes for the Evening Standard, a paper which was notorious for its attacks on the Livingstone administration on the Greater London Council in the 1980s. It used to be said that you couldn’t get money out of the GLC unless you ticked the right ‘minority’ boxes. The Spectator these days is the unabashed voice of privilege — white privilege, class privilege, whatever — and one can almost hear the Tory gents scoffing over this article in their gentlemen’s clubs about how this scheme will make it so much easier for all the one-legged, blind, quadriplegic black lesbians to get around, particularly when the next accessible stop on the Victoria Line south of Green Park happens to be Brixton.
Of course, any able-bodied person can make a supremely rational case about how making Green Park accessible will do nothing for the disabled, much as many a white man has argued that affirmative action harms black people, but they don’t do their argument any favours when they display this kind of ignorance about the skills disabled people have, besides the misrepresentation of the geography of the area. Does he still live in London, or has he done a Richard Littlejohn and relocated to Florida? We should be told.
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Do they count the elderly in the 3,500 statistic? I.e., old people who are not wheelchair-bound, but need to use chairs from time to time, because they cannot walk longer distances. I imagine there will be a lot more of them in the near future, as the population ages. The same people who don’t care much about step-free access now, will be cursing when they can’t use public transport as old folks.
in the 2001 census the City of Westminster had a population of 181279- almost certainly a gross underestimate, for a variety of reasons. Gilligan claims “that only 3,500 disabled people supposedly live in the City of Westminster”. What is his source? 14% of the adult British population are registered as disabled. Either very few- astonishingly few- disabled people live in Westminster [14% would give a total of about 25,000 disabled people] or Gilligan is showing his usual accuracy.
Does he mean wheelchair users? Again, how does he know? Agreed, not all- or even many- disabled people use wheelchairs, but even Gilligan should know that many people who do not use wheelchairs have problems with stairs or escalators. However, as we have found one gross inaccuracy in this article, there is no need to believe another word he says here unless he produces outside confirmation for it.
this isnt just about dissabilities. Wheelchair access also makes life alot easier for mums with prams. No ramps or lifts means carrying a buggy up the stairs. Anyone who has been on the LONDON UNDERGROUND with a pram will know how hard that is.
Thersites: he measures it by the number of people who hold the disabled free travel pass, as he states.
iMuslim: I don’t know. But by the way, a lot of disabled people hate the term ‘wheelchair-bound’.
Indigo - anz idea why i cant post from an n95, as 9ou cn c my posts r a mess. Screen goes blak. I cnt c wat im writn
IndigoJo:”much as many a white man has argued that affirmative action harms black people”
It will come as little surprise that I am going to take issue with that - affirmative action does harm the very groups that it tries to help, because, it both promotes, and is, racial discrimination.
The UN defines “racial discrimination” as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”.
I don’t have to tell anyone here that the BNP is a racists political organisation. One of the biggest reasons why we have seen such a marked increase in support for the BNP over the last few years is the resentment caused in deprived working class and predominately white communities when they see opportunities given to other, so called, minority communities that are not available to them. The current moves by the Equalities Commission to ban the BNP are playing into the hands of the miniscule membership it has. As they will keep trotting out the same line, so why can it be ok to have a “National Black Police Association”.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t have any problem with the “National Black Police Association” (who fall foul of the UN Definition above) but if you are going to allow them why can’t there be a “National White Police Association” ? – it is a real question – in this age where everyone should be treated the same, by everyone – by employers – by the state it seems that we need to decide are we as a society going to try and eliminate all forms of “racial discrimination”, and if so let’s do it properly and tolerate none.
I don’t have to tell anyone here that the BNP is a racists political organisation. One of the biggest reasons why we have seen such a marked increase in support for the BNP over the last few years is the resentment caused in deprived working class and predominately white communities when they see opportunities given to other, so called, minority communities that are not available to them.
Rubbish. As a former member of the BNP I can tell you for sure that the marked increase in support is primarily because of Islam. The BNP is even in the process of changing it’s constitution to allow ethnic minorities to join and there is little resentment from those who joined in the past few years who have no problems with non-Muslim ethnics but hate Islam.
The BNP hardly said a thing about Islam and Muslims prior to 9/11.
M Risbrook : “Rubbish. As a former member of the BNP I can tell you for sure that the marked increase in support is primarily because of Islam.”
If you re-read what I said, you will see that I said “One of the biggest reasons”, of the people who I have spoken to who have admitted voting BNP, not one has mentioned Islam as a reason. I don’t disagree that the BNP takes an objectionable line towards Islam and Muslims.
M Risbrook : “The BNP hardly said a thing about Islam and Muslims prior to 9/11”
A very quick Google, shows that up to be false, the organisation http://www.stopthebnp.org.uk reports that “As far back as 1996, the BNP were attacking Muslims as being separate from other ethnic groups. Then members were active in campaigns against the opening of mosques in east and south London. They wrote at the time, “The BNP has no objection to Muslims having their own places of worship – providing they are in Muslim countries and not in Britain” they also say “It is clear then, that the BNP see racism against Muslims as a vote winner. Muslims are an easy target for fascists. This is why the BNP cowardly singles them out for abuse. Under British law, Muslims do not exist as an ethnic group, and so technically cannot be the victims of discrimination. In other words, the BNP can goad Muslims and get away with it. This is why the BNP was campaigning against Muslims long before the New York attacks” [my bold]
M Risbrook : “The BNP is even in the process of changing it’s constitution to allow ethnic minorities to join”
The reason for that is down to the Equalities Commission forcing them, not something they would have done if not faced with financial ruin defending and losing a High Court case. Seasoned observers have pointed out that it is unlikely to have much effect as there are unlikely to be many would be members waiting for the change to join, they will still be a racist political organisation.
Christ knows how we got onto racist nonsense, but the NBPA (unlike the BNP) expressly doesn’t restrict membership by ethnic group, so an argument based on the claim that it does is pretty stupid.
On the original article, has Gilligan never tried to take a baby, a small child, a large suitcase or an elderly friend/relative on the tube? Lifts rather than steps are useful for all the above, not just wheelchair users.
John’s right, as so often - step free is expressly not just about wheelchair users, I lugged my son’s buggy up enough steps at tube stations in his youth to know this. Turnham Green was a particular favourite, which seemed to grow extra steps every visit. The buses, on the other hand, were singularly excellent.
What Gilligan is therefore doing is what he always does - frame the argument into a ‘them and us’ broadside against the ‘disability rights agenda’ as pushed by his neocon mates like Dean Godson. We first caught him at this on the Routemaster/bendy bus controversy invented by him and his friends back in 2005.
It all ties into the general libertarian tax-cutting every-man-for-himself Europhobic Islamophobic public transport hating dickhead wingnut set clustered around the Speccie, Telegraph and various nasty think tanks like Policy Exchange. It’s all propaganda, all the time, and the one thing that ties it together is a desire for less responsibility and fewer taxes for rich people, dressed up as concern for the man in the street. Balls.
“has Gilligan never tried to take a baby, a small child, a large suitcase or an elderly friend/relative on the tube”
He doesn’t have friends and no one in their right mind would lend him a baby. BTW, Boris and co. have already scrapped the step-free access project at Baker Street.
BTW, Boris and co. have already scrapped the step-free access project at Baker Street.
That is particularly awful. The sub-surface Underground is, by nature, the easiest part of the whole system to make step-free. In fact, they could have done it bit-by-bit over the past 20 years and most of it could be accessible by now.
it costs £96m. the country is currently brrowing £500m a day! do you really think we should spend this money!!!
Simon, the project has been going on for years. It started well before the crash. I thought Green Park was already accessible, actually, since I saw new lifts there years ago.
“it costs £96m. the country is currently brrowing £500m a day!”
Then comparatively speaking it is a mere bagatelle, so why the fuss?