Denmark Hill station entrance shambles

[Ginster]

We all know it's been rubbish since opening but today was potentially dangerous (queue in road) and frustrating (missed train)

How can a station with 4 platforms have 2 entrance gates and 1 exit?!

Queues far away on pavement and some in road. Queue to get out extended to the platform on platform 2!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who missed their train. It was worse today as trains through ED station all cancelled but still the logistics and design of this station are crazy.

Anyone know best route of (I'm sure pointless but gonna register it) complaint? (And not Twitter)

Thanks!

[eastdulwich_dweller]

Another day.. Another dangerous overcrowding situation at Denmark hill. It's obvious we need two entrances and exits. Preferably another exit on the other side of the station.

Any thing to say Councillors?

[Earl Aelfheah]

It's only a matter of time until people get hurt I fear. I cannot understand why they didn't put another entrance / exit on Windsor Walk

[Earl Aelfheah]

BTW - The 'redevelopment' of Denmark Hill was originally a ?4.18 million project to make Denmark Hill accessible. The works overran by more than a year and cost an additional 2 million pounds. It was a disgraceful example of mismanagement of public finances and from what I can tell, no one was ever held to any kind of account for it. We've been left with a station that is an accident waiting to happen.

[nxjen]

Recently released statistics from the Office of Road and Rail http://orr.gov.uk/statistics/popular-statistics#station-usage show Denmark Hill to be the 68th busiest station in the UK out of a total of some 2,500 stations. Passenger numbers have doubled since 2010 which must have been when the ?improved? station works were planned. This is a screen shot of statistics relating to Denmark Hill.

[redjam]

It really is unacceptable. This was the queue at 8.40am today.

[rendelharris]

Denmark Hill is managed by Thameslink, so best way to contact them is through their website:

https://www.thameslinkrailway.com/help-and-support/contact-us

I agree it's a dangerous mess - I lived nearby on Denmark Hill when they were revamping and always assumed that the new walkway was going to extend to a second entrance/exit at Windsor Walk, couldn't believe it when it didn't. Even now at the far end of the old walkway there's room to knock a second entrance/exit through which would cost next to nothing, presumably they don't want the cost of staffing it. It really does have the potential for a mini-Hillsborough at the moment.

[DulwichLondoner]

I wonder if there is only one access (on Champion Park), and if they didn't build another one closer to the hospitals, to simply save money: would a second access mean that Thameslink would have to pay for staff to be present there?

Also, surely it wouldn't be a huge cost to build at least some fences on Champion Park, to make sure passengers stay on the pavement and not in the middle of the road?

[KidKruger]

It looks crazy / dangerous.

But this is because ED trains were cancelled, right ?

I'm not sure that any individual station is designed with an in-built capacity for handling overspill from nearby stations which have problems.

I know DH can be a swine even on a normal day, but aren't these crowds particular to today's problem at ED ?

[DulwichFox]

Its called progress..

Someone got paid a lot of money to sit in a cosy office looking at their computer screens designing this.

No need for a site visit. I mean, no one having been to site could of come up with this. Could they. ??

I retired in 2008 so I do not need to travel into town any more. I did not realise things had got this bad.

Those pictures are horrendous.. It's a disgrace.

DulwichFox

[Cardelia]

KidKruger Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> It looks crazy / dangerous.

> But this is because ED trains were cancelled,

> right ?

> I'm not sure that any individual station is

> designed with an in-built capacity for handling

> overspill from nearby stations which have

> problems.

> I know DH can be a swine even on a normal day, but

> aren't these crowds particular to today's problem

> at ED ?

Yes and no. The huge queue outside the station stretching back beyond Windsor Walk is not normal, even on very busy days, and this was almost certainly influenced by events at ED station. But if one of the entrance barriers at Denmark Hill stops working then I've seen crowds build up outside the station to the extent they spill out onto the road by the crossing. This happens around once a month on average.

The queues inside the station, however, are typical of the morning rush at Denmark Hill. Queuing on both bridges and down the stairs to the platform is normal. The station simply doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with the number of people who use it every day.

[Henry_17]

So the coffee shop gets more entrances than the station. Typical.

[kford]

Thought this this morning. Dangerously overcrowded, spilling out into the road outside. There needs to be another six barriers, or another set of barriers at the other side of the footbridge.

[bobbsy]

From a different perspective, I drove past at about 8.30 this morning, and I felt from a drivers point of view it was an accident waiting to happen. People spilling onto the road, people walking around people on the road not looking at traffic etc.

[DulwichLondoner]

I wholeheartedly agree it?s an accident waiting to happen. And it?s even more dangerous for those on two wheels, as they?re less visible than a car, plus can (legally) filter. When I used to ride my motorcycle along those roads, I used to always be on the lookout for suicidal idiot pedestrians in the morning: there are those who don?t hear you honking because they have headphones on, those who cross against the red man, those who cross exactly after getting off the bus and run into the road without looking, because their train is leaving and they can?t be bothered walking 20 metres to the traffic light ? but how on Earth am I supposed to see them if a big red bus was hiding them from my sight?

I am sceptical about education campaigns and fines; however, installing small fences on the sidewalk, so as to force pedestrians to cross only at the traffic light, might help.

Oddly, I never notice the same behaviour at the East Dulwich station. Maybe because most bus passengers come from south and don?t need to cross once they get off the bus?

[rendelharris]

I agree there's plenty of lemming-like pedestrian behaviour there, but the traffic behaviour is pretty shocking too: often see cars speeding up to run the light on amber and even sometimes two or three cars driving straight through on red, and nobody seems to observe the rule that flashing amber means go if the crossing's clear, not just let it rip the second the red's off. Also, shamefully, far too many cyclists running the red, including (as I saw just the other day) whizzing through pedestrians shouting "warnings."

Not sure railings would help, or rather that they would be safe; in the event of an incident like a train fire or terror alert they'd just create another dangerous pinch point, surely? The answer has got to be a second exit onto Windsor Walk; as noted above, a fairly simple knockthrough at the north end of the old corridor should do it - there's even a boarded up building there which looks as if it might at one time have been an entrance. Until then Thameslink should be forced to employ marshalls to prevent the accident which is plainly waiting to happen.

[jimlad48]

The really scary thing is that the new station is actually an improvement! Before you all used to have to squeeze through one tiny door in the corner of what is now the entrance to the coffee shop.

DMK is an absolute scandal and needs urgent fixing - the tight corner as you come in means that if one person stops, the whole thing grinds to a halt. The ticket barriers make it worse too - they slow people down all the time, and only move when they are open for anyone to come through.

If they added an entrance on the footbridge it would make an enormous difference as suddenly there would be a means of getting in/out without using main entrance. It would make little revenue difference as I've often seen ticket evaders swan past the gates, report it to staff and they take no action...

[DulwichLondoner]

Good point about the potential dangers of railing in an emergency.

Another appalling behaviour I see is cars and motorcycles doing u-turns on Champion park, just before the bend and the corner with Grove Lane, where the road becomes uphill. Since that's just behind the bend, it's impossible to see these geniuses coming from Grove Lane. Indeed, coming down from Grove Lane, I always approach that bend very slowly, even if this often means vehicles behind me shouting comments I won't repeat here. I'm not sure all of those idiots could be avoided at the already low limit of 20 mph.

[edcam]

Also, during evening rush hour it can take 20 minutes to get out of the station. If more than one train arrives at once then all of the stairways become dangerously overcrowded and people are prevented from entering the station and getting down to the platforms. It doesn't help that there are a large number of stupid people who try to ascend/descend the stairs on both sides, instead of using common sense and sticking to the left.

No thought went into this costly "refurbishment" at all and before too long, something awful is going to happen here.

[Nigello]

Taking the ramp form the stairs at the southern end of the platforms you pass a small concrete staircase - it's even got handrails, I think - that could easily have been/be another exit/entrance. As to why there is no exit on the other side (the road that is blocked off whose name I do not know) it baffles me. A busy station is good because it shows there is demand but when the station is not designed for such large amounts of people it will come back to haunt those in charge.

[Nigello]

I sent the links to both threads to Caroline Pidgeon whose profile is here: http://www.carolinepidgeon.org (She is a transport bod, in short.)

[jimlad48]

I raised this on a railway forum where others were talking about this. The view there is DMK is likely operating on some very risky 'risk assessments' that could potentially cause huge embarrassment to the operator.

[DulwichLondoner]

The only (partial and insufficient) mitigant I can think of is that, in an emergency, some people would probably be able to use the coffee shop as an alternative escape route.

[James Barber]

Plans are being developed for a second entrance. I met with GLA Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon and the train operator several months ago on site about a second entrance on the northern side. Plans were shown.

One successful outcome of that was the second ticket machine.

[edcam]

Thank you James. Any chance you could chase them to see when they will be doing this?