The eastbound lift at Pontoon Dock is being replaced, with work not expected to be finished until the end of October.
It comes less than a month after TfL returned the westbound lift to service after a ten-month closure to replace it.
One passenger and local resident, Nusrath Hussain, said that the back-to-back closures felt like “a slap in the face”.
Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Hina Bokhari has warned that the new closure means that the station “effectively remains inaccessible” for many people, especially wheelchair users and elderly passengers.
“Pontoon Dock has become a symbol of how badly we are failing on accessibility,” she said.
“People have waited nearly a year for one lift to be fixed, and now they’re being told to wait for the other one. That is completely unacceptable.”
Passengers will have to climb eight flights of stairs to reach the platform while the lift is out of service.
There are no escalators at the station, but TfL is set to start work on installing six escalators next summer as part of a £44 million upgrade project.
This work is not expected to be completed until 2028.
“We need urgent, practical solutions that help residents today,” Ms Bokhari AM said.
“A future upgrade in 2028 means nothing to someone who has to face unnecessary difficulty every single day they try to use their local station.”
In a Freedom of Information (FoI) release published on July 15, TfL said that the westbound lift had to be withdrawn last September after a “component failure”.
“The eastbound lift is now being replaced as part of the same end of life replacement process,” it explained.
Tom Page, general manager for the DLR, added: “We apologise to customers who have been impacted by lifts not working at Pontoon Dock DLR station.”
TfL said that it is installing a different type of lift at Pontoon Dock which requires the lift shafts to be strengthened, requiring a slightly longer programme than a like-for-like replacement.
