HELP : Dangerous Signage at Reading Station

[whole diary]

[lbraine]

I'm hoping someone can help me to find a suitable contact.

On each end of the new Transfer Deck at Reading a plan of the Deck has been added with signage - including brail.

But the signage key states that the escalators provided on P10/11, P12/13 and P14/15 on the country end is DOWN to the platform.

When these escalators always work UP from the platforms - and more entry/no entry signs indicate as such.

I am concerned a blind or partially sighted person - reading the new plan signs - will go to step on the escalators, only to fall flat on their face.

I found a FGW^▸ (First Great Western) customer host - explained to them the issue, took them to the sign and showed them the mistake. His response was 'the escalators are reversible by a key'!!

Totally failing to gasp the problem in front of him.

So - who can I contact to report this ?

[ChrisB]

Tweet Network Rail?

[paul7575]

Here's a picture of one of the signs in question.   

Note the deliberate error in the title text, which appears on both the signs on the 'passenger transfer deck' - I wonder if the words are in the wrong order in the braille version as well...   Other similar signs at platform level do refer to the passenger transfer deck.

Presumably specified by the bloke who thinks the platforms have A and B sides, rather than ends...

Paul

[stuving]

I think this is less serious than it appears, though there are several mistakes in the maps.

• While those with physical problems avoid stairs, many people with poor sight find escalators scary and stairs more familiar and reliable. This is from the RNIB^» (Royal National Institute for the Blind - about)'s advice on offering help:
  
  "Many blind and partially sighted people prefer to avoid escalators so if you^re approaching one, ask the person you are guiding if they^re happy to use it or if they^d prefer to use an alternative route. If there^s no alternative and the person you^re guiding is uncomfortable using it, you can ask that the escalator be turned off. ... It^s not safe to take a dog on a moving escalator or travelator so you may need to find an alternative. The dog might need to be carried if there is no alternative. Discuss how you will do this or indeed if it is practical."
  
  So the indication of an escalator only would suggest "avoid" to those who do fear them.
• When the map says "stairs down" or "escalator and stairs down" it may well not be talking about the direction of movement, but whether it leads to/from above or below. So the comment about the escalators being reversible is not so daft.
• The map is still wrong, in that it suggests no stairs at the "A" ends and has no way of showing stairs but no escalator (or at least not one for use going down). So it does not meet the the requirement of telling which way (A or B) to go to avoid escalators.
• Obviously the map was made by/for RNIB, with NR^» (Network Rail - home page) perhaps just providing a place and some money. There should be a process for correcting it, if that is important. However, I suggest that RNIB would be the ones to judge whether that is called for, based on feedback from the people it was made for.

Sorry about the lousy focus on the picture - I hope the symbols can still be made out.

[onthecushions]

Never use one word where three (or five) will do.

For "Footbridge" read "Passenger Transfer Deck"

Its not just lawyers that are paid by the word.

OTC

[paul7575]

In recent travels I've seen lift signs (and audio announcements) that take me to the 'bridgelink' rather than what is quite plainly a footbridge.   

What's the point of it all?

Paul

[stebbo]

I'm a lawyer and I say use clear understandable language - so I think this is sheer gobblebygook. Seems to me the problem lies in schools. Teach people to use clear simple language and use only as few words as are necessary.

[didcotdean]

Transfer deck is hardly a new term though. This 2002 report uses it in the context of the building over Liverpool Street and Charring Cross. Maybe the next stage is a multi-storey building on top ...

Oxford and Didcot stations also have transfer decks in their development plans.

[ellendune]

Does the transfer deck at Reading look like a foot bridge?  No.

Then to call it a footbridge would be misleading.  So what do you call it?

[JayMac]

Overbridge?

Construct for make most excellent perambulation of peoples between platforms and exitings?

[ellendune]

Overbridge?

Construct for make most excellent perambulation of peoples between platforms and exitings?

But what real people think of when the term foot bridge is mentioned is something like at Exeter St Davids, Derby or Tilehurst. Not Reading.

Only bridge specialists use the therm overbridge.

[JayMac]

Only bridge specialists use the therm overbridge.

So, my second suggestion then? 

[stuving]

How about "upper level"? Or, since it's probably bigger in floor area than the rest of the buildings put together, why not "station"? But simplest would be "upstairs" wouldn't it?

[stebbo]

Overbridge is generally well understood and upper level is fine in my book. But does the word footbridge automatically imply a limit to its size? Transfer deck sounds like something akin to the old transporter bridges as at Newport Docks.

[Red Squirrel]

I agree that 'footbridge' brings to mind an old-fashioned narrow bridge. The thing at Reading fits the definition of a concourse, I'd say, or the upper concourse if you wanted to be completely unambiguous.