AND FINALLY: The Bank

Relief at last.

Regulars who use the 21min DLR link between Threadneedle Street and London City Airport will be relieved to hear much progress has been made on the rebuilding of Bank station.

Routine customers, who also get lost in the underground complex, will be delighted, and visitors, known to spend as much as 20min trying to find their way around, and then emerging from whence they started, will not know what they have missed!

A new southbound tunnel has been constructed in order to convert the existing tunnel into a customer concourse. A further entrance to the Waterloo & City line is already easing congestion on the key route between the City and Waterloo station every morning.

The upgrade project will also deliver 12 new escalators, with a new link between the Central and Northern lines, as well as the DLR. Two new lifts will open, providing step-free access to the Northern line for the first time and improved step-free access to the DLR. Direct routes will be created between the Northern and Central lines, with two new moving walkways helping to cut journey times.

The interchange between Bank and Monument Tube station is one of the busiest on the Tube network; each weekday morning around 120,000 customers use the stations, of whom more than 50,000 are changing lines. Demand has risen by around a quarter since 2008 and the complex network of pedestrian tunnels and escalators between the Central, Northern, District, Circle and Waterloo & City lines, as well as the DLR, regularly causes congestion and delays to customer journeys.

The project to upgrade Bank and Monument stations will increase capacity by 40% by 2022, making journeys quicker and easier for the 120m customers who use the station every year.

Bank users (survivors), just be patient!  

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