Sunday 21 March 2021

The least used Zone 1 Tube station

 Now, I was looking at the Tube Map the other day and I wondered: What is the least used station in Zone 1? You may know that Roding Valley is the least-used station on the whole Underground network, but what is the least-used station in the most used zone? Well, to find out, I had to venture into the endless maze of Wikipedia. I went to the List of London Underground stations page and pressed "sort by usage". I then scrolled down until the first time I saw Zone 1. However, 2 stations with exactly the same (rounded) values came up - Lambeth North and Regent's Park, both on the Bakerloo line. This honestly didn't surprise me - I suspected these two would pop up quite early. Now, I still didn't know the least used Zone 1 station, but I had narrowed the list down to two potential candidates. I scrolled back up to the top of the Usage column and saw a reference mark, number 5. I hovered over it and saw this link: Station Usage Data. I clicked on it and immediately saw that I had downloaded an XLSX file to my computer. I opened it and scrolled down to Regent's Park. Station Usage (2019): 3,867,435. I then scrolled up to Lambeth North: 3,868,659. I now knew that the least used Zone 1 station was Regent's Park and, to be honest, it didn't surprise me. The station entrance is nowhere near the park's main attraction: ZSL London Zoo. However, the station is close to Madame Tussauds... but Baker Street - an interchange also on the Bakerloo line - is closer. On top of that, Great Portland Street station, which provides a direct route to the park from the busiest station, Kings Cross St Pancras, is only 183 metres away. Really, I don't think there is a point to Regent's Park station, giving it is next-door to a much more accessible station, and not too far from another station on exactly the same line that is also an interchange. Even if they didn't close the station, it would probably provide more use if they connected GPS and Regent's Park together underground - that way, people wouldn't have to pay two separate fares to get from one to another. All in all, On my least-used scale, Regent's Park ranks a 3/10 rating, and is classified in my usefulness of stations list as "A bit pointless, ngl".

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