"Can that man sitting on the steps please move," the invisible voice booms. Then louder. "That man on the steps who is blocking the way. Please move."

Then, infuriated: "You, that man in the brown overcoat, there's no reason to block the steps. You are holding up people who want to use the stairs." Finally, the tired commuter who has been held up to us all as the cause of our mutual subterranean unhappiness, realises he has been made the scapegoat. The woes of Town Hall station are all his fault. He slinks off to join the other miserable but upright commuters. It does not stop there. "The all-stations train to Bankstown is now at Circular Quay … the train should be here in about two minutes. So just be patient," the voice booms. We know that. It says so on the board.

"Can passengers please stay behind the yellow line while the train approaches." I would gladly do so if a three-person deep crowd was not exploding behind me. "Those people crowding the train doors - you are a danger to yourselves as well as to others." No, the real danger here is that nothing has been done to upgrade this station to cater for today's crowds. But on it goes. The voice is relentless, monotonous and narky.

"We all want to get home, and pushing and shoving won't make things happen more quickly." We don't know what's good for us, is the message, and CityRail is going to make sure we understand. If there was any real concern about overcrowding at Town Hall station, designed in 1916, then new exits would be created. It can take an eternity in peak hour just to get on the escalator from the bowels of the station. A fire down there would be … well, it's not worth thinking about. If there was any concern about the risk of commuters falling from platforms the station would be redesigned so those waiting were not forced on top of one another. And if there was any thought at all about commuter comfort there would be more than just token seating (I, too, have had to sit on the stairs - when eight months' pregnant) and a real attempt to fix the stifling conditions.

In 2005, when RailCorp announced a multi-million-dollar plan to upgrade Town Hall, the tender package warned that the station was a serious danger to the public. Last month the Herald revealed that a report by Parsons Brinckerhoff found the station "cannot currently be fully evacuated in the morning and evening peaks within times stipulated by [the fire safety standard]". RailCorp said a widening of the main concourse and ticket barrier expansion had improved access, but the projected commuter growth remained unaccounted for. Within eight years 168,000 people would pass through the station each day, up from about 140,000 now. By 2021 there will be 178,000.

For more than 10 years I have used the station to get to work, but it is only this year that have had to do so in peak hour. In that time I have had trouble breathing in sauna-like conditions; had to tiptoe around pools of blood and been caught on overcrowded trains where people were forced to travel to the next stop while jammed helplessly against the doors. Many times I have thought how easy it would be to fall off the narrow platforms, or to be accidentally pushed off. Just one person losing their footing would do it or - perhaps more likely - just one person losing their mind.