I am sure that many people will agree that access between Waterloo East Station and street level is far from ideal. Perhaps it could be improved?
There are three available routes: –
- Leave the station platforms by the ramps at the North end of the station and walk to Waterloo Station then choose your preferred exit from there.
- Leave the station platforms by the ramps at the North end of the station and walk towards Waterloo Station but take the exit down many steps to Sandell Street.
- Leave the station platforms by the steps towards the South end of the station and enter Southwark Underground Station then exit from the main entrance at the junction of The Cut and Blackfriars Road. (This route can be used by railway-only ticket holders as well as travelcard holders, but the tickets used not to open the barriers and some staff did not know the concession; it has been much easier since barriers were reprogrammed for the London Bridge rebuilding.)
The third route appears to be very popular with many passengers holding railway only tickets, both in the morning and evening, especially at the moment when tickets will open th automatic barriers without problems. However there is one irritant when using this route and that is the need to descend into the upper levels of Southwark Underground between street level in Southwark and the platforms of Waterloo East Station.
It would improve access between Waterloo East Station and street level to provide an entrance/exit direct to the road called “Hatfields” that the railway crosses on a bridge just before the country end of the platforms at Waterloo East Station. Between the ticket barriers that control access to the South end of Waterloo East Station and the ticket barriers that provide access to Southwark Underground Station there is an area from which it may be possible to install a direct access to and from street level in Hatfields. Indeed close by there are emergency exits which presumably 
connect to street level – perhaps these could be used to provide an access route? Alternatively, and probably in a better more suitable position, it might be possible to create an entrance from Hatfields that would be located beside the escalators that descend in to Southwark Underground Station to the area between the two ticket barrier lines.
What do you think? Please let us know
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I regularly use the underground tube route through Southwark station and have been frustrated over the phalanx of double ticket barriers which seem to make little sense, with guards sitting around doing very little to help confused customers. I agree with the views expressed above by Keith and I think they could at least remove one of the barriers at the front to help ease access. I expect it is a revenue collection issue though?
Great idea and one I have often wondered about. Please make this happen
Using Hatfields would be problematic because it would require more staff, as would using the Southeastern emergency exit at the bottom of the Platform A steps that leads to Brad Street.
Greet Street would be more realistic because no more staff would be needed, and it avoids the need for Southeastern passengers to enter the Underground station and vice versa.
Hi Keith
Yes, it is a nonsense that you get to ground level from Waterloo East, see the ground just outside the window but cannot get out that way. I have asked staff about this and the nearest I got to a sensible answer was that the neighbours were against it. It was a good idea to put in the extra link at Waterloo East – what a pity it was not thought through.
The Sandell St option is just about usable as an exit, but absurd as an entrance for anyone elderly or with luggage.
There aren’t all that many residential neighbours: I would have thought the restaurants and bars in Isabella St would be ecstatic at the prospect of a large number of commuters walking past in the evening.