Well, that was interesting. I went down to Whitechapel for some sage guidance from the wise Adam Brichto of brickwallfilms (doing all sorts of exciting things in films), and on the way back I thought I'd spend a few minutes making a little guide to what happens when the unwitting traveller tries to leave Bank station. I'd love to say it was an easy undertaking, but quite frankly what happened was even more bizarre than I could have imagined. Having spent an entire hour going from exit to exit underground in the rush hour, I can attest the following with absolute certainty:
1) Once you get off the train, the only sane course of action is to head for the nearest exit. However long the traffic lights take to change above ground, you will never save time going underground. Unless it's raining fire, there's just no excuse. I have checked. It's just not worth it.
2) The morons who built the subway system for Bank station were both very evil and very very stupid, masters of the blind alley, the misleading sign and the completely purposeless line drawing. They hate you.
3) There is only one document in the entire world that explains what to do at Bank Station. And you can only get it in one place. Bank Station. It's called "Continuing your journey from Bank" which is nice. It's by no means perfect, but it does show you where the exits are, more or less.
I'm sure this breaches some copyright laws, but I'm putting it up on this site. Only not yet, because the blog is buggering around. I'll try again later. And after that, I'll put up a little sub-site showing what you actually see when you walk out of Bank Station.
You lucky people.
Showing posts with label exits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exits. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 June 2008
The Exits at Bank Station
This is just infuriating. I'm doing a walk this Sunday for the City of London Guides, and most of the nearby Underground Stations are closed. So I'm trying to direct people from Bank station, but it's nearly impossible because nobody has a list of where the exits from Bank station are. There are 9 of them, and for the uninitiated or those with no sense of direction, it can be very confusing. It's bad enough that Bank is an evil, twisting spaghetti junction underground. But this apparent refusal to allow people to leave in the direction they would like is simply wrong.
So here, for the benefit of anyone who wants to know, and because it's taken me a long time that I could easily have spent doing something much more useful, is the complete (as far as I know) list of exits from the Bank station booking hall.
Exit 1:....
actually I can't do this. I can't find it. I'm going to have to go to Bank and check. and take photos. and report back. But I will. And I'm going to do it for all the other exits from Tube stations in the City as well. Because quite frankly, this is annoying me.
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