Friday, April 9, 2010

Random rant: Our lovely transport system

Just came back after meeting a few ex-colleagues earlier today. Haven't been taking the public transport at this kinda peak hrs for some time and wasn't expecting what I am about to experience.

It was 6pm at AMK station, heading towards Jurong East with one of my colleague staying in the same direction. As its the peak hour (or so I assumed), I expected the train interval to be like 2-3mins each. To my surprise, the board indicated 6 mins. Nevermind lor, just wait... and while waiting, crowd kept piling in. We were standing at the arrows pointing in, but soon people starting standing right smack where the door is gng to open, with the arrow pointing out. Train was packed to the brim and we couldn't squeeze in at all, only those fucking ugly singaporeans (and/or foreigners) whom squeezed their way in without waiting for the people to alight first managed to get in. Fuckers.

Next train took another 6 mins. 12 min of fucking waiting time during peak hour. Nice.

Jammed packed again, managed to squeeze in this time, but it was so bloody packed that me and my ex-colleague's lips were almost touching. No joke. It was damn embarrassing for both of us. Luckily for us both, our breath didn't stink.

Anyway, we tried to make some conversation during the journey and the issue of single gender train carriages came up. She wished that there will be a carriage entirely for women and perhaps the old folks.

"Imagine its you right now so its not so bad, but there are times where I'm being packed so closed to a stranger that we're almost kissing, its not alright at all" she laments.

I can understand where she's coming from but a couple of reasons seem to make this impossible.

Looking at the load right now, imagine a female only carriage is half empty, who is to stop anyone from packing into them? how are you gng to enforce it? Will in results in fights/arguments?

Others such as the wheelchair bound and family with kids etc will start to demand their own carriages. Can I than request that we ban eg kids strollers from entering any other carriages? While we're talking about kids strollers, i think its ridiculous when they enforce strict requirements on foldable bicycle but not strollers. Have you ever seen the size of one of those 3 in 1 kinda stroller?

I just wish we had a better system with more trains and shorter waiting time.

2 comments:

  1. it is still a worldclass transport system if you compare with Incredible India,
    the mistake is not having a higher ceiling clearance within the tunnels...otherwise more pax can sit on the carriage rooftops,

    yours sincerely,
    raymond lim

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  2. With the small barrier installed...i think they don't mind packing the stand..afterall nobody's going to fall onto the track

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