Thursday, December 15, 2011

Not so fun things that have happened around me on non-Singaporean public transit

There has been a lot of concern recently in Singapore about the conditions of public transit and train faults. I'm here to reassure readers that in most fundamental aspects, Singapore's transit system is far above other systems in the fundamental aspects. It's not to say that people shouldn't seek to constantly improve. As a professional, I'm all about learning, adapting, and improving. However, it is pertinent to enjoy the benefits of today and not fall into a cycle of pessimism under the guise that somehow we live in the worst of times. Therefore, I will compile this list, bullet point style, of experiences I've had on non-Singaporean transit systems:

  • Last Monday, on a New Jersey Transit train out of NY Penn Station, I was delayed for half an hour in the train in the station due to emergency track repair. Not knowing exactly when the train was taking off, and with a meeting to go to, I couldn't leave to grab the lunch that I had earlier passed up for expediency.
  • A few days before, I walked by the A,C,E stop on 125th. There was police tape all over the corners and cops milling around. Somebody was shot in the station.
  • In Paris: Strikes. Nuff Said.
  • Every few days there was a suicide that would shut down one of the lines for a while.
  • My last day working in Paris, I took a Subway car from hell whose emergency breaking system automatically activated immediately after reaching full speed five stops in a row.
  • In Paris: Average about one solicitation for money from some poor soul for every ten minutes of transit riding.
  • Coming from the Paris airport with heavy bags, we were forced to leave the train because of a fire. To catch the replacement train, the PA kept telling us to cross under to different tracks, but the operators seemed to be changing their minds several times while we were dragging bags back and forth.
  • Also on the Metro, a man appeared to faint over me, then reached and grabbed a woman's iPhone while she was talking on it and ran off just as the door closed. I believe iPhone theft gets you the death penalty in Singapore.
  • There's often smelly people on the Paris trains. I mean smelly like roadkill wrapped in moldy carpet. The worst was a drunkard passing out and voiding his bowels and bladder on the train. Ooh fun.
  • On San Francisco's BART, it's so noisy in parts that you need ear plugs.
  • It's rare to find a part of a Paris train that doesn't have graffiti and scratched windows on it.
  • The Beijing trains are so crowded that I can only describe them as squishy.

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