Your article quoting Howard Smith, the Elizabeth line’s director, includes the assertion that the line has level boarding and lifts throughout (A prize worth pursuing: has Elizabeth line shown what rail investment can achieve?, 21 February). I am a full-time wheelchair user, and a glance at a Transport for London map shows that level boarding is not available at stations east of Whitechapel or west of Paddington (with a few exceptions).
After these stations, you have to find staff to call ahead and organise a ramp, as the trains are not level with the platform. This line – which opened 27 years after the Disability Discrimination Act and three years after Greater Anglia showed how level boarding can be achieved – has many stations that do not offer level boarding and cannot be independently accessed by wheelchair users.
