New ticket hall opens as part of £700m Victoria Tube station upgrade

0 SHARES

Posted: 17 January 2017 | Katie Sadler, Intelligent Transport |

The new North ticket hall at Victoria Tube station has opened as part of a £700m upgrade project.

The new North ticket hall at Victoria Tube station has opened as part of a £700m upgrade project.

The new North ticket hall at Victoria Underground station has opened providing direct access from street level to the Victoria line. The development forms part of a £700m project to upgrade Victoria Tube station.

A new entrance on Victoria Street, at the junction of Bressenden Place, near Cardinal Place, is now open and leads to the ticket hall and Victoria line. ‎The entrance means that customers can now easily exit the station onto Victoria Street without having to cross the series of busy road junctions outside the station.

Victoria currently serves more than 82 million customer journeys each year and is the fourth busiest Tube station in London. The station links major rail routes to the south of London with the Victoria, District and Circle lines.

Victoria Tube station upgrade due for completion in 2018

Carried out in stages, the station will eventually double in size, easing congestion for customers and provide, for the first time, step-free access.

The tunnels connecting the North ticket hall to the District and Circle lines are due to open in summer 2017. The station will then become step-free in early 2018, enabling customers with accessibility needs to access the Victoria line, connecting with other mainline stations like King’s Cross, St. Pancras, Vauxhall and Tottenham Hale, as well as central London via Green Park station.

The final part of the station to be completed, the expanded South ticket hall, will open in 2018. Once completed, the station will feature eight new lifts, nine new escalators and 20 new ticket gates and be double the size of the original station before work began in 2009.

“The new station will enable quicker journeys, allow people to move around more easily and make the station more accessible for everyone”

Commenting on the opening, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “The opening of the new North ticket hall at Victoria is great news for the tens of millions of Londoners and tourists who pass through the station each year. It marks a significant step forward in a modernisation programme that will make journeys through this vital hub easier and more accessible for all.”

Mark Wild, Managing Director of London Underground, said: “Opening the new entrance to Victoria is a huge step in the station’s modernisation project, and will make journeys easier for many thousands of customers every day. Once completed, the new station will enable quicker journeys, allow people to move around more easily and make the station more accessible for everyone.”

Ruth Duston, Chief Executive Officer at Victoria BID, said: “On behalf of local business, we are delighted the first phase of the Victoria Station upgrade has opened. It means safer and easier access to Victoria Street and the surrounding area for the 82 million customers that pass through every year.

“We’re pleased the Underground station is being modernised, joining the rest of Victoria, which is undergoing rapid transformation.”