The challenge of making a train station a nice place to be, on the face of it, sounds really hard. Because unless everyone there is Francis Bourgeois*, train stations are tetchy places. Packed with people pining to be somewhere other than they currently are, fast.
Standing in Kings Cross this month, I wondered whether the pining was more about people racing towards home, or people racing away from the train station itself. You see, Kings Cross is a bit yucky. And the sugary brands housed within are a bit yucky too. Bins are full. Tables are unwiped. Front liners frown.
I remember reading, 20 years ago, that you can, to a degree, Remote Control how people behave in public spaces. By how you create the space and how you treat the people within it. To illustrate, this article listed places where people were least likely to litter. Number one was churches. Number two was Marks and Spencer.
So with the Kings Cross yuckyness, it seems to me that to improve public behaviour, the behaviour of the station itself needs to improve – first. I wonder if Francis agrees?
*https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-iS5lINyI5/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA