It’s time that I admitted, to myself as much as anyone else, that I am a just perpetual tourist. There is little I like doing more than trundling around the city in my powerchair, exploring, finding out everything I can about this fascinating metropolis. Now that winter is ending especially, I have have taken to going up into the city proper in order to really get to know it. The Elizabeth Line has made getting up there easier than ever.

It must be said, though, that something really irks me about London’s newest tube line: why on earth aren’t all its stations completely step free? While the stations which were built from scratch, such as the one at Woolwich, are step free from train to street, others such as those on the branch of the line out to Shenield, are only step free from platform to street. That means that if I want to get off at such stations, I have to ask for someone to be waiting for me with a ramp. That would be fine, of course, and it’s better than a totally inaccessible station, but it just spoils my spirit of spontaneity. I want to be able to get on and off tube trains as I please, rather than having to plan my routes and tell the station staff where I’m going. After all, following my nose is half the fun.

It therefore baffles me that stations like the one at Stratford are not totally step free. The platform for the Jubilee Line is fine, but not for the newer Elizabeth Line. This has been bugging me lately, so today I decided to go and investigate. Catching a bus to Woolwich, I caught the Lizzie Line to Liverpool Street; then, after a brief trundle there, went to catch the tube to Stratford, asking the man at the gate whether there were plans to make the platform at Stratford step free.

To my total surprise he said there weren’t. Apparently, the issue isn’t just a matter of adapting the platform, but lies with the type of train being used: the platform is fine but the trains are too high for them, so there is a gap. The newer Elizabeth line trains don’t quite hook up with the older platforms, such as the ones at Stratford. That simply struck me as even more absurd, and even more frustrating: as great as this city is, and as huge as the strides it has made towards inclusion are, there are still things that it really does still need to get right. It seems absurd to me that a brand spanking new, multi billion pound infrastructure project still has  such issues. In the event, I got to Stratford without a problem, and a guy was waiting for me with a ramp. I just wish that I didn’t have to make such an event of my whimsical little excursions into central London and could come and go without having to ask for help or tell anyone where I want to get off, like everyone else.