Bank tube station’s new Cannon Street entrance has opened

The London Underground’s Bank tube station has gained a large new entrance with lifts and escalators direct to the Northern line and DLR platforms.

Completed a couple of months later than originally expected, the new entrance, the largest out of Bank’s many entrances, faces onto Cannon Street, and is the final stage of a substantial upgrade at Bank station to reduce the maze of narrow corridors that had made the station notorious amongst regular users.

The changes were needed in part for passenger comfort, but mainly for passenger safety as the station was close to hitting its capacity at peak hours and there were risks that the station may need to close at times, and if there was an emergency, then the tiny corridors in such a busy station would be a problem.

So over the past few years, much larger corridors have been dug out of the soil under the City of London so that the station can handle considerably more people than the old narrow spaces, and with the new moving walkway and escalators it’s far quicker to get in and out of the station.

The new Cannon Street entrance completes the upgrade, which has delivered a large new southbound Northern line platform, the huge concourse between the two Northern line platforms, new escalators from the DLR and two moving walkways linking the Northern/DLR and Central lines.

And now, the final stage, a dedicated entrance that gives six more escalators linking the Northern line to the street level without the need to use all those long winding corridors that had to be used before. It also, with a change of escalators, makes the route in and out of the station for DLR users a lot easier as well.

There’s also a new dedicated lift from the street to the Northern line and further down to the DLR platforms.

The new entrance is a marked change from most of the other entrances at Bank tube station (Bloomberg excepted), which are narrow steps down from the pavement, and the new entrance’s more conventional wide entrance will eventually sit within an office block.

In addition to the conventional blue strip and roundels, the station also has the name embossed into the stonework above the entrance. Look on the corners to see the old Fire Insurance plaques that were reclaimed from the old building on the site to be reused again.

Inside the entrance, there are three escalators down to an intermediate landing, and then a landing with a fetching fantail ceiling design, and three more down to the platforms. The entrance also has three ticket machines and several display screens with train times — and warnings of any delays. There are ten standard ticket barriers, and three wide ticket barriers, which is a big increase in the number of ticket barriers at the other entrances.

There is also an accessible toilet on the paid side of the station entrance, plus two lifts down to the Northern and DLR platforms.

The new entrance building is a proverbial iceberg though, for all the size of the space that’s been built, it’s just the tip of the facilities that have been built as there’s a huge back-office space here for mechanical plant equipment and offices for staff. Over time, a lot of the back office facilities of the Bank-Monument station complex will migrate to this entrance, making it the administrative heart of the station.

The new entrance is pretty much opposite Cannon Street station, although there’s no need for a new Out of Station Interchange to have been created, as people could already swap between Bank and Cannon Street stations on the same ticket.

The road outside the new entrance was recently resurfaced by the City of London, and there’s a plan to add a new pedestrian crossing just to the west of Bank station’s new entrance. That will arrive later this year.

Although the station entrance is open, the building work is not complete, as there’s a large oversite office development to go on top and building that 9-floor office block is how TfL will recover some of the £700 million cost of the station upgrade.

Apart from some snagging work, and site cleanup, opening the new Cannon Street entrance pretty much completes the Bank station upgrade project that started all the way back in April 2016.

To read more about the behind-the-scenes work that created the new look Bank tube station, go here and here.

A few more photos were taken later in the morning

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and TfL interim Commissioner, Andy Lord arrive.

Two new lifts – one to Northern line only and one to both the Northern line and DLR platforms.

Victoria line moquette in the staff cabin at the new entrance

Only just opened, and people just seem to know its there

The Northern line concourse leading to the new entrance

The intermediate space between the two banks of escalators

These signs in the underpass outside Monument station need to change