there's something about ..... half-gate

Someone dropped into our MRT's track again.

Seriously, it's a major designed flaw from MRT. Granted, many railway tracks round the way is open and anyone could have dropped onto the track on purpose or carelessness.

However, railway tracks are railway tracks unless every train in the world goes underground. And mostly, these railway tracks were built like donkey years ago and they belongs to the old technology.

MRT trains are different. We built the station, and we build the infrastructure from scratch. And when you build an open platform, you are being naive to ensure that no one ever will drop into the track. Someone may die. Disruptions will take place.

So, half-gate was suggested. SMRT said that:

1.) firstly, it's too costly to implement half-gate to all the above-ground stations.

2.) People can still climb over.

The first argument is non-valid. SMRT earns lots of money. They should spend those money for safety reasons regardless the costs.

The second argument is also silly. We have laws and regulations, but people can still break the law. Stealing is a crime, but petty thefts still take place. You don't argue that since theft will take place, we might as well abolish the rules and regulations.

If anyone is seen to be attempting to climb over, that would have given enuff time for people to react before a disaster take place. And this half-gate acts as a deterrent to people who think it's convenient for them to push someone off the track or commit suicide. Some short fellow may think that it's daunting for them to climb the half-gate and commit suicide.

Now... how is this relevant to my trip to Hong kong?


This pic is taken at from Hong Kong's MTR's network. It's an open platform and they think that half-gate is necessary for safety reasons.

So is SMRT is saying that HK MRT is silly to implement such expensive design?

I hope SMRT can wake up and think about the consequences. If they think that half-gate will not solve the problem, then implement full-gate. If already half-gate is that expensive and to implement full-gate is going to bankrupt SMRT, then let another tragedy take place again.

Atlas, they view tragedy as just another statistic.