Bloomin 'eck. How much fuss over this?
The subway is closed, for much needed work, lets just put up with the disruption til its done.
As pointed out already, using the station steps doesnt help quite a lot of groups of people. I always had to push mum in her wheelchair around to platform 1 the long way.

Plain and simple, the footbridge is not a public right of way, and lets be honest about this, opening it up for a few months would encourage fare evasion, as well as many other issues.

I do love how it becomes a public flogging of london overground just because of this. Seriously!