The platform guards or their masters seem to think that an incomplete gate is much more dangerous than no gate. The gap between the last stanchion and the end of the platform is particularly fraught with peril.
Incomplete safety features are typically more dangerous than none at all as some people assume the gate is fully in place.
Good point, but you’d have to be braindead on this one. Maybe legal liability would be more of an issue.
Also, don’t leave the incomplete gate up for months doing nothing.
Or on brain numbing drugs which a recent report showed a large percentage of the population are!
Yep, this bit I don’t get, some stations have incomplete works for a very long time.
Indeed. The restrooms at Shantao Temple station have been temporary porta-potties like for a year now. Chichang it has been like 6 months.
As to half placed gates, don’t get me started. Those things are vital. Kids running, people with pets in crates opening them in the platform, bouncing cellphones…I have seen almost all.
Crazy congestion at Zhongxiao Fuxing Blue Line platforms yesterday around 6:30pm. They were regulating the flow of people at the top of the platform escalators so that the platforms would not reach crush load.
Probably 20 MRT staff in total (even cleaners were pressed into service) did a great job of keeping everyone safe and packing the crowds into a fresh train every 90 seconds. Even a seasoned Japanese train company would have been proud.
A lot of folks were stopping on the mezzanine to take pictures of the scene, so I’m guessing it’s not this bad every day.
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What happened, you think?
Some event that ended at one of the Sogo Dept Stores the same time that office workers were going home?
Maybe people were heading to a lantern festival?
Friday night plus special activity = madness in MRT.
In order to avoid the crowds from the Lantern festival I started at Beimen and walked towards Hsimen. It was exactly the opposite most people were doing so that passage was not as congested. But it was pretty wild.
Ha! I followed that route this evening–me and about twenty million other folks. It’s the first time I ever though the Beimen area (crossing Zhongxiao West Road at Zhonghua Road) looked like Shibuya crossing in Tokyo!
Guy
Today they also had the heavy bike parade. Would have loved to see them…but saner thoughts prevailed.
One year I took Bobby. I felt so sorry yesterday for all the poor flesh and blood canines in that mayhem. Friggin owners needed a pic of their doggies there?!
Dog year. Pic of doc in front of dog lantern…good luck?
I hate this.
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Yeah, it is so strange and disorientating which is sad for a map!!
Puting the north at the top is an international convention, right?
Is it the whim of a laoban somewhere in an office or is there any historical reason to display maps this way?
Old debate … personally, I like it, but I get why other people don’t. Maybe it’s from all the times I’ve twisted topographic maps around to match my orientation.
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Think of it as a chance to test your cognitive skills and up your game. 
Seriously though, at least they have such extraordinary detailed maps! The MRT system in Taipei is amazingly professional in this respect, aside from some certain willful historical amnesia that took place in Taipei City not too long ago (scroll down to the discussion of the MRT map at NTU Hospital Station discussed by the excellent German reporter Klaus Bargenhagen in the link below):
Guy
Yeah it’s disconcerting at first, but I find it quite intuitive now.
I agree.
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its completely retarded. and anyone who disagrees is wrong! everytime i look at one of those dumb ass wrong angled maps i get disoriented and have to twist my head upside down or something. its an annoying waste of time and fits with my theory that all taiwanese have borderline no sense of direction skills that they thought this was a good idea.
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But putting South at the top is the Chinese convention, so… they’re trying to be neutral. 
