Have they had enough of chopping of seats during the C151
refurbishment excersise? It's like discouraging people from taking
public transport (especially on weekends/off peak). Even as my dad
watched the news on this removal of seats, he said in chinese "They
dare to call this improvement! It's deprovement". We have lived
with 9 seats per row from 1987 till recently so whats wrong with
continuing?
Well... the refurbished C151 trains are not that bad - it's the
same layout as the C751B trains, and they removed two seats per row
mainly to accomodate wider seats and more standing space around the
doors - the latter being a place where many people like to stand
around, so having more space there could at least mean that people
who like standing beside the doors have less of a chance to block
the doorways.
Though, that said, having more space around the doors could also
unintentionally encourage people to crowd around the area more, a
problem the new layout on the refurbished C151 trains is trying to
solve; this could be rather counter-intuitive. In that case, 8 or 9
wider seats per row and absolutely no standing room around the door
could have helped encourage passengers to move inward. Another
possibly could be to split up the row of seats into two, with space
in between deeper into the interior of the train car - that may
also help encourage people to move in.
That said, at least it's 7 seats per row right now - the C651
trains that participated in the experimental layout program (the
blue cars) were slightly even worse - 6 seats per row.
p.s. Talking about seats, I faintly remember that, sometime in
the early 1990's, there was an experiment to install plush (i.e.
cushioned, upholstered) seats on MRT trains? I glimpsed it on a
news bulletin back then, but never encountered any of these seats
on any trains I took. Could someone confrim what my memory is
recalling?
