Your article quoting Howard Smith, the Elizabeth line’s director, includes the assertion that the line has level boarding and lifts throughout (A prize worth pursuing: has Elizabeth line shown what rail investment can achieve?, 21 February). I am a full-time wheelchair user, and a glance at a Transport for London map shows that level boarding is not available at stations east of Whitechapel or west of Paddington (with a few exceptions).
After these stations, you have to find staff to call ahead and organise a ramp, as the trains are not level with the platform. This line – which opened 27 years after the Disability Discrimination Act and three years after Greater Anglia showed how level boarding can be achieved – has many stations that do not offer level boarding and cannot be independently accessed by wheelchair users.
I would like to invite Mr Smith to travel on the Elizabeth line in a wheelchair to experience just how time-consuming and frustrating organising ramp access can be. I suggest he starts at Liverpool Street, where the lift seems to be broken nine times out of 10.
Dr Anna Wall
Norwich
Article by:Source: Guardian Staff
