Increase your life expectancy by hanging out at the right tube stations!

Hat tip to my friend Lou-J for tipping me off to this one (a couple of months or so from original publication, but better late than never - and I would have missed it left to my own devices).  I have to admit to being sceptical at first, but it's all there in glorious colour with numbers and shades of grey!

UCL’s Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis has created a new tube map to highlight the 'health and wealth inequalities' of Londoners.  And here it is:


Cheshire, J. 2012. Lives on the Line: Mapping Life Expectancy Along the London Tube Network. Environment and Planning A. 44 (7). Doi: 10.1068/a45341.

Click here for a larger, interactive version, though if you're going to carp about your station not being included, I suggest you read this first, and complain to someone else second.

Map creator and paper author James (great name) Cheshire says

'The map shows two key statistics: 1) the life expectancy at birth of those living around each London Underground, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station and 2) the rank of each London ward on the spectrum of Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI).'

Of course, what everyone really wants to know is: will moving to a new tube station extend my life and make me richer?  And there are other concerns.  For example, when I go to work every day, I can go to Paddington (which I normally do) or Edgware Road (as I did today).  But there's a six-year difference in life expectancy between these extraordinarily close stations.  Did I put my life in jeopardy today?

I advise you all to abstain from any unnecessary travel on the TfL network until these questions have been thoroughly researched and answered.  Just in case.  It's not much to ask - we all did it during the Olympics and Paralympics, didn't we (well, I didn't but you might have)?