Lifts on the London Underground were out of service for a cumulative total of seven years in 2024, new Freedom of Information request data shows.
The worst offending stations for separate outages throughout the year were Stratford, Victoria and Wembley Park, which averaged one lift out of service every three days.
TfL says more than a third of the 272 Underground stations have step-free access, but many are reliant on lifts to be so, meaning when lifts are out of service, the stations can become inaccessible if there’s no alternative.
For those with disabilities or mobility issues, that can completely derail their journey.
Peter Langton, a multimedia journalist and wheelchair user, regularly commutes through Victoria Station and has to go to great lengths to arrive at his destination when the lift is down.
Langton said: “If the lift wasn’t working, my next thing would be to either look at buses, because often buses that are outside of Victoria station go to where I need to go.
“I normally just go on the maps and tap in the address, and then, you know, press go and see if there’s a walking distance.
“If I can do it within half an hour, then that’s fine.”
A 30-minute walk being branded as fine shows the mentality that people in this situation have adapted to, as seeking alternative routes has become a regular occurrence.
The outages can take a long time to fix, with only 18 stations out of the accessible 93 seeing lifts out of action for less than a day across 2024.
In comparison, Canary Wharf’s Elizabeth Line lift was not working for 214 days last year.
Underground lifts can be out of service for several reasons, according to TfL, including faults and staff unavailability.
For stations to remain open, they require a member of staff who is licensed for lift evacuations so when there is a staff shortage, some are forced to close.
TfL states that when this situation arises, stations with step-free access are prioritised to stay open.
Cat Whitehouse, the head of communications and engagement for the charity Transport for All, said: “It’s absolutely unacceptable that these lifts are left down for so long, and we are stuck having to look at other options.
“Can you imagine if the payment turnstiles went down that often? Can you imagine if the escalators were out that often?
“There would be an absolute outcry. But because it’s a lift, it’s being ignored. It really is discrimination against disabled people.”
Almost half of the 521 people that Transport for All surveyed in 2023 said they’ve had problems with lifts whilst travelling.
Mark Evers, chief customer officer for TfL, said: “We understand the significant impact any unavailability of lift services can cause to customers who rely on them and we are committed to ensuring that when lifts are taken out of service, they are reinstated quickly and that information about their availability is prompt.
“Keeping step-free stations open as much as possible is a priority and we always try to minimise lift disruptions by moving station staff to cover key locations.”
Both Langton and Whitehouse link societal attitudes towards disability being one of the reasons why lift outages are commonplace.
Disabled people are forgotten about, according to Langton, while Whitehouse said accessibility is last on the list of priorities regarding public transport.
However, lifts not working affect everyone, not just those who need them to get from point A to B.
Whitehouse said: “When a lift is down, okay, the disabled community are affected, but everyone is affected.
“And when a society doesn’t include everyone in it, then we get this fragmented peace. What we want is to be together to be a community.
“But we know that for every person who says, yes, I’m disabled and I need that lift, there’ll be others who don’t speak up, who struggle on, who drag themselves down a stairway in great pain and in agony for a lot of the day, who don’t recognise themselves as disabled but are experiencing impairment, just like the rest of us.”
Both interviewees want more lifts to act as a safety net and to cope with the demand.
Whitehouse said: “Why didn’t they just build more than one so that there was a backup?
“The amount of people travelling through the station, the amount of people you see crammed into Transport for London lifts, you think there is demand.
“There really is demand. So why aren’t we having more lifts put in there, so I would say yes, we need more backups.”
Langton goes a step further, putting more onus on TfL staff.
He said: “In an ideal world, none of the lifts would break down, that would be the best thing wouldn’t it.
“But the best possible thing for them to adapt would be there to be an on-site, one person on each station in the eternity of London that is an engineer type person.”
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