Shanghai A to B

Or at least it looks like that’s the case. The new part of Line 8 (Yaohua Road — Chengshan Road — Aerospace Museum) has an interesting — and at that — dangerous new sight to behold: platform screen doors that don’t work the way they’re supposed to work.

Reports from fellow passengers, including folks on the Shanghai MetroFans Club, pour in telling horror stories of screen doors that simply don’t work. Hard hit are two stops — Jiangyue Road (above-ground) and Jiangpu Road (underground). (The situation is worse at Jiangyue Road than at Jiangpu Road, which is actually a Phase I (late 2007) station.)

To make the whole case look even worse, staff went from being responsible to being negligent. Initial reports tell of station personnel keeping an eye on the fault door; however, as the number of screen doors out of action grew, the doors grew to become a mere tourist attraction instead of doing something useful.

Shanghai has it better than Beijing, where right underneath the platform lies the third rail (750V! Don’t play around with that thing!). Still, those doors are here for a purpose. It could be that Phase II of Line 8 could have been a rushed project, all in the name of Shanghai World Expo next year (2010). Whatever the reasons may be, we sure hope that they’re fixed as soon as possible. And if you’re headed that way in Shanghai, let’s not get too close to the doors…