April 5th – Telford and Wrekin Council, Network Rail and whoever else spent 10 million pounds on a new footbridge and all they got was this lousy structure that forms huge puddles.
This is brand new. It’s badly designed, badly executed and not nearly fit for purpose.
I’m not a negative person but this is bloody awful.
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February 25th – Telford station, Monday morning.
I notice we now have an ‘Official Procedure’ for when the lift on the new pedestrian bridge breaks down.
‘Complimentary’ taxis will run the stranded passengers from one side of the station to the other.
If you spend nine million pounds on a new bridge to fix disability access issues, then omit a ramp and replace it with an unreliable lift meaning punters can become stranded if it breaks – you have failed as a designer and actually made the problem you set out to solve worse.
This is an idiotic disgrace. Those that allowed this to happen should be ashamed.
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February 15th – The sun and mild weather at the moment are most welcome. Heading off on the scenic route to Lichfield for a meeting I crossed Ogley Junction footbridge and the shadows made me think of the great designer Peter Saville.
I love the effect of architectural shadows.
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January 30th – Heading to Hortonwood in the morning, I alighted in Telford in a snow shower that didn’t last long, but rendered the cycleway beautiful with an icing sugar dusting of fresh, undisturbed snow.
What made it even more gorgeous was at the same time, the sun was shining.
An odd experience on a beautiful, cold and crisp morning.
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January 19th – A late run out for exercise on a cold, murky night took me to Chasewater. Unusually, I entered the park from Brownhills West of the spooky, Peter Saville-esque M6 Toll footbridge, the enclosed crossing with the streetlight shining through it.
Init is a hard, hostile, unwelcoming space that makes for remarkable photos.
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January 17th – It’s rare I’m negative about anything over much, but the new footbridge at Telford Station is an utter design failure and in my opinion, a fiasco.
Still very much unfinished, the build quality in places is very poor, the finish terrible and when I arrived mid morning, both lifts had failed.
With no lift on the westbound side, and the utter design failure of no ramp, I had to shoulder my bike and carry it up the steep steps.
The old bridge had no lifts – but ramps both sides. Although not good in a wheelchair, they at least were continuously available. If the westbound lift fails here now, wheelchair uses are stranded.
The situation is so bad there is now a hastily drawn up plan for calling for help if the lift fails.
The powers that be have spent 10 million pounds to make the situation far, far worse for wheelchair users than it was before they started, ostensibly to improve things for them.
Telford and Wrekin Council and Network Rail should hang their heads in shame.
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#365daysofbiking The Crossing:
December 13th – A bright, glass hard, cold day saw me in Telford mid-morning, and in the week or two I haven’t been here, the new footbridge has opened.
Man, is it a curate’s egg.
First thing is, someone clearly booked the possessions and plant to remove the old bridge for a fixed date, and the new one had to open. Regardless. So it’s not in even a nearly finished state. Brick cladding is still being laid. The access ramp to the cycleway on the Priorslee side is still being built. Bits of it haven’t been surfaced properly or at all. Workmen still mingle with commuters. It’s a bloody mess if I’m honest.
The bridge itself is an interesting, open construction that’s light and airy. It makes the journey between platforms one hell of a lot shorter. The lifts are welcome. It feels stable and the thing seems to be a nice, rigid design.
But there’s a huge, massive, glaring issue.
There is no ramp access to the Shrewsbury side of the station. So wheelies and those not able to use steps are confined to the lift. If that isn’t working, someone alighting here from Brum or Wolves will be stranded on a platform next to a 6 lane road with no means to cross it. There is no simple way around.
I can’t overstate how bad this is if it’s the final design.
If the bridge does not eventually provide ramp access to the Shrewsbury platform, then it will have failed in its primary objective – to make life easier for those that found the old ramp too steep. The designers will have spent 10 million quid making the use of this station for those with limited mobility much more of a gamble.
I hope I’m wrong and a ramp is sorted. If not, the council and Network Rail really need to rethink this urgently.
The bridge is nice, but too reliant on lifts, and at the moment is very much unfinished. Open too soon, and at the moment, looking critically flawed.
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#365daysofbiking Fade to grey:
November 24th – A grey , dark day with few redeeming features. A little maintenance on the bikes failed in the face of a more serious issue, and I headed out before nightfall for a breather. A full circuit of Chasewater and Chasetown offered little in the way of photo opportunities, and the images, apart from one, reflected the colour of the day.
The night, some what perversely however, was a bit more dramatic, as I captured at Anchor Bridge.
#365daysofbiking An impressive span:
September 17th – At Telford, a major step in the contstruction of the new station footbridge has been taken – the deck of the main span over the ring road adjacent has been lifted into place. It’s huge.
I watched it grow from a skeletal form on the central reservation of the road system, to see it glazed clad and wired, and now it spans the roadway in parallel with the facility it is to replace.
As a design, I’m ambivalent, but it will be a much nicer, convenient thing to use. But there’s a long, long way to go yet.
At least it provided the morning commuters with an interesting spectacle.
#365daysofbiking The Crane life:
September 12th: My first trip to Telford in several weeks and the new station footbridge is making steady progress. The ring road is now closed under the bridge, and. a large crane is being assembled, presumably to lift the massive main deck into place from it’s construction point on an adjacent verge.
A queue of HGVs and machines lines up down the empty roadway. People discuss, Marshall and prepare. This is clearly to be one heck of an operation.
The rest of the project progresses: Brickwork is going up, lift machinery is taking form in the assembled bridge piers and lots of ancillary pathways and steelwork are moving into place or emerging.
This is going to be one to watch.
BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking 