Yes it’s been controversial, the subject of several days’ strike action, but the new hours for ticket office opening on the Underground start today, Sunday 6 February.
For Wanstead station these are the hours:
And for Snaresbrook:
And just for the sake of clarity, here are those numbers again:
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Daily parking rates at Snaresbrook Tube are going up from £2.70 to £4.50 from Saturday, a poster at the station is informing drivers. Other car parks run by NCP for London Underground will also see price rises, and the company says it is to fund continued investment in the facilities, but a statement given to the Wanstead Guardian said that the decision followed research into the prices of surrounding car parks too.
Since there aren’t any other car parks near Snaresbrook station, it means the only competing option for many drivers will be on-street parking. Restrictions near the high street – including the cunning ban on parking between 9.30am and 10.30am – seem to make inevitable a degree of increased pressure on unrestricted streets further from the station.
[picappgallerysingle id=”8642566″]Earlier this month the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced a plan to significantly cut the hours of opening of ticket offices at Tube stations. With more people using Oyster cards and ticket machines, he said, there was less need to have offices open – in fact only 5% of journeys now began with someone buying a ticket from the office.
The details of proposed hours are dramatic. As the table shows, weekday opening at Wanstead will be three-and-a-quarter hours, and just an hour-and-a-half at Snaresbrook. Weekend opening is either one or two hours.
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The mayor’s plan emphasises that there “will always be staff present at every station to help passengers” and that no ticket offices will close completely. And as the full list of proposed closures demonstrates, the two E11 stations are by no means alone. However passengers at Snaresbrook have been signing a petition against the closures, with opponents producing the pictured leaflet (click to enlarge).
