Andrew Dismore

Barnet and Camden Labour London Assembly member Andrew Dismore AM challenged the Mayor over his tube ticket office closure scheme during Mayor’s Questions today

Andrew Dismore urges Mayor to stop ticket office closures from Andrew Dismore on Vimeo.

The Mayor having argued that the information he had said that there were problems but no longer, due to contactless payment, Mr Dismore asked the Mayor:

‘When was the last time you tried to get through Euston tube station in morning rush hour?

‘When I did a couple of weeks ago, the overcrowding in the ticket hall was so bad that the staff at the top of the escalators were stopping people from going down. There were long queues for the machines, with crowd control barriers to manage them. What does this say to people coming to London,   for example for a business meeting, and they find they can’t get beyond the station due to your queues?

Mr Dismore told the Mayor:

‘Instead of listening to your TfL advisors, you should go and see for yourself. It’s particularly bad at main line terminus stations like Victoria, Kings Cross/ St Pancras, Liverpool St, Heathrow, as well as Euston: all places where we can expect there to be overseas visitors coming to London, who don’t understand the system. Do you really want their first experience of London to be queuing for half an hour or more just to use a ticket machine to get on the tube?’

After Question Time, Mr Dismore said:

‘It is clear that Boris Johnson is out of touch and has no idea of what is going on in the tube station ticket halls. Instead of listening to TfL senior officials, he should go and have a look for himself -or better still stand in a queue at rush hour at one of the main line stations to see just how bad it is and to hear what people think about it.

‘It is time for the Mayor to admit he was wrong and put at least some of the ticket offices back, to help deal with these inordinately long queues which give such a bad impression to new visitors to London, in particular.’