HIGH AND LOW BARNET

High Barnet, at the tip of the Northern Line, is a curious station. If you ever go there, you get the feeling the line once continued further or was intended to. It just doesn't look like a terminus station. Then there's the long slope up to Barnet Hill and more uphill walking to get to the town centre of Barnet. Unless you're going to see a film at the Odeon or a match at Barnet FC (somewhere in the middle of League Two) in which case it's downhill walking.

I propose a new station at the bottom of Barnet Hill, the obvious name for which would be Low Barnet but perhaps Barnet South, Barnet Stadium or Barnet Underhill would be more appropriate. This would be located somewhere between the Odeon and the football ground. Once this new station is built, High Barnet station would close and the line would be extended in a tunnel of about 700m length to a new High Barnet station somewhere in the vicinity of the Spires shopping centre.

The purpose of both new stations would be to attract greater numbers of local residents to the Northern Line, and also to encourage visitors from a little further afield to enjoy the delights of Barnet. Here's a map to show you what I mean.