Odd Escalators at London Bridge...

Speaking of odd TFL things...these new spray painted feet (every other step) on the escalators at London Bridge are a bit strange too...at face value they would seem to indicate that the right hand side is for going down the escalator and the left hand side is for going up it (a bit of a tough ask as, obviously, the escalators only go in one direction at a time)...!  Were they a misguided official addition or are they a bit of street "art"? One thing is for certain, it's not going to help the tourists navigate the station any quicker...I'm thinking prank...

New Escalator Cabot Place

Far be it from me to be one to judge the cost/benefit of urban shopping centre design, but in this tiny space we already *have* six escalators, four of which connect this floor alone (you really can't move for escalators - actually, that doesn't make a lot of sense)...but do we *really* need a fifth? And if we *really* were to need a fifth escalator, wouldn't it make sense to put a bit nearer the DLR entrance (where it stands a chance of getting crowded) rather than at the opposite end of the dome? *Holds hands up in surrender*...

Update - they have now started building a sixth one!!

Escalator policy London Underground

What is it with escalators at the moment? At Canary wharf they've been building scaffolding around the "DLR level" to "Mid shopping level" escalator for a few days now (started last week), meaning it's upward partner has been stopped and turned into a narrow flight of stairs (left hand side is up and right hand side is down...not the kind of thing you see every day) -

- big queues at the top and bottom at busy times, but then they just occasionally turn it back on again so everyone wastes their time heading for it before having to reverse course and use one of the DLR staircases (yes, very sensible, commuters can put up with more than most people, but some consistency, please)...and to watch them wasting their time turning it into an advertising poster site while they should be working on fixing it is actually probably rather more frustrating...



Next up is London Bridge...they have taken to switching all the escalators one would normally take up towards the mainline station to coming *down* to the platform (at exactly the time when no-one is trying to go in that direction)...this has been for almost two weeks now (update - finally fixed today!)...with no sensible reason why the trickle of folks coming in this direction can't do it via the stairs from the Northern line...

This makes the evening rather inconvenient as it means me getting onto completely the other end of the train at Canary Wharf (the end, of course, where all the escalators are all going the wrong direction - i.e. upwards - again, at this time of night would it not make sense to turn them back the other way?) and then coming out to the secret Borough High street exit...about a 6 minute walk from London Bridge mainline (at top speed)...*very* annoying! :(

I'd love to understand the logic behind the latter contraflow (you can understand closure for maintenance from time to time), but surely it would be sensible to always weight (consistency again) the majority of the escalators in the direction of the majority of the foot flow? Would it be so hard to do that?

"Whiskey tango foxtrot, over" ;)