Wheelchair dependant customers are finding it difficult to use tubes on the London Underground as many stations are inaccessible.

 

Forty-eight stations on the tube network have ‘step free access’ from the street to the platform this is out of nearly 400 stations on the entire tube map, these stations include lifts that sometimes do not work and escalators that the chairs can’t go on.

 

Debbie Gross, a disabled customer of the London Underground said: “Its difficult being in a wheelchair as it’s very hard to try and get in to places that are easily accessible by able bodied people. The tubes are supposed to be for everyone yet I still feel that wheelchair users are being discriminated against”, she continued to say “all stations should be wheelchair friendly”.

 

Priority seats are being introduced on the platforms and tactile warning surfaces will be installed on staircases to hep less able customers. Managing Director of the London underground, Tim O’Toole said in a press release: “We have now committed to providing full step-free access at 25% of all Tube stations by 2010.These will include stations close to venues for the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics”.

 

The Piccadilly and District lines have the most stations that are wheelchair friendly, the only fully accessible line on the tube network to be fully accessible to wheelchair users is the Docklands Light Railway.