New station entrance as Finsbury Park upgrade work reaches next stage

The entrance to Finsbury Park Underground station from Wells Terrace will close on 18 July 2016 as part of the work to upgrade the station. The closure is the latest step in a comprehensive upgrade of the station that will introduce step-free access by 2018, increase capacity and make journeys quicker and more pleasant.

Two new lift shafts will be built to enable step-free access to all platforms and lines at the station. New ticket gates have already been installed, and the capacity of the spiral staircases has been doubled. Future work will create a new, larger western entrance that will add a new step-free access route from 2019.

David Hughes, Director of Strategy and Service Development for London Underground, said: `Finsbury Park is one of the busiest stations in north London, with over 27 million people using it every year. The demand will only increase as the population of London gets larger, and the improvements being made will allow the station to deal with this demand. The introduction of larger ticket halls and step-free access will make a real, positive difference to customers' journeys.'

Finsbury Park Tube station is the fourth-busiest Underground station outside of zone one - the number of people using the station during the week has increased by 20 per cent since 2010, and is expected to continue to grow.

The new station entrance work is being carried out in conjunction with the re-development of the adjacent site by City North Finsbury Park Limited.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

• Keeping this entrance open during construction or constructing a new temporary entrance is not feasible due to the complexity of the work
• During construction of the new entrance, customers will be able to access the station via nearby entrances on Seven Sisters Road and Station Place. Buses will continue to serve their normal stops from where customers will be able to follow the short signed walking route to Station Place
• From the current Wells Terrace entrance to the Underground platforms customers currently walk the length of the adjoining long corridor into the station. The alternative walking route into the station via Stroud Green Road and Station Place is only approximately one hundred metres further than the existing route and is expected to take only a little over a minute longer than the current route, based on average walking speed.
• LU has undertaken a thorough congestion analysis for both the on-street approaches and within the station to ensure that the temporary closure can be safely managed. This included the Stroud Green Road pavement to ensure that the route between Wells Terrace and Station Place can accommodate all those using the pavement. Even during the busiest times of the day at the narrowest points, the pavement is sufficiently wide enough to accommodate these numbers according to our planning capacity guidelines.