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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[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).
A sniffer dog, about eight coppers and knife scanner were at Wanstead Tube tonight as part of an anti-knife operation. People coming through the gates were selected to go through the scanner, having removed anything metal, airport-style. But it was a degree or two more civilised than that – did the scanner beep? It was probably your belt, sir, thank you for your help – though no doubt the atmosphere could changed if the dog had sniffed anything out.
