This morning a colleague of mine saw a man killed at Retreat Station. Trying to force the door of a moving train, my colleague tells me, he slipped onto the rails and was cut in half by the train’s wheels. This is all I know at this stage, and this from a traumatised colleague not quite ready to tell the story.
My office is metres from Observatory Station, Cape Town. Every day I see people hurtling towards the station as the trains pull in, in the hope that they can jump into the carriage before the train leaves. (There, a man has just run past my window, right now.) It’s a deadly pursuit, made more so because the trains still seem able to pull away as people leap through their closing or broken doors. If the train was simply unable to move while its doors stand open, this would not happen. This is not complex or expensive technology. It would cost an electric contact on each door and a conductor on the platform. Would it mean trains would take longer to leave? Yes, for a while, as passengers got used to the system. But soon enough, as anyone who’s travelled on a safe train-system knows, the peer pressure to get the hell away from the doors speeds things up again.
But this is not just about spending money on electronics. It’s about being organised. In the 1980s, New York’s subways had become messy and dangerous. The danger was attributed in part to the fact that the New York City Transit Authority had allowed their trains to be vandalised, mostly with graffiti, to such an extent that their poor state became an excuse for further reckless and malicious behaviour on and around them. This idea was part of a broader syndrome described in the ‘broken windows’ theory (described long before its true success in this 1982 Atlantic Monthly article), which suggested that when a community’s environment improves, so does the behaviour of those that usually cause the most trouble. A broken window suggests that no one cares, so a local might think, ‘Why should I care?’, and so behaviour spirals downwards.
So, as part of a committed effort to making the subways safer, in 1984 the NYCTA set up a painting station at one end of a line, and painted over graffiti every time a train pulled into that station. Some trains were being painted every two hours. Within five years, over six thousand carriages were graffiti-free. (Here’s a concise PDF summary of the programme.)
The point is not that graffiti is dangerous, that crime rates on the subways dropped, or that painting stations will help us here. The point is that someone at the NYCTA had to get very, very organised to paint six thousand trains in five years. It can’t be done without exceptional planning, organisation and determination. Similarly, our trains won’t be safer without similar planning, organisation and determination. This is not a funding issue. It is barely an infrastructural issue. It is an issue of organisation, of executing simple, effective systems well.
If my colleague’s account this morning is accurate, Metrorail’s response will be critical: it will be determined by the value they put on a passenger’s life. And that value should not only be measured in spending or compensation, it should be measured in the commitment of their minds to effective solutions.
“It can’t be done without exceptional planning, organisation and determination. Similarly, our trains won’t be safer without similar planning, organisation and determination. This is not a funding issue. It is barely an infrastructural issue. It is an issue of organisation, of executing simple, effective systems well.”
In this country? You’re kidding right? Those guys couldn’t organise a pissup in a brewery!
Bravo! It is something that requires, in addition, to the impressive organisation & management, an even more impressive WILL to change the unsatisfactory situation.
Not drawing up of wish-lists and dreamscapes.
That’s not will. That’s wishing and hoping, usually leavened with a goodly pinch of blaming and finger-pointing and whining.
Will is the high octane petrol in the tank of practical action. Without it, you’re going nowhere.
It’s in shorter supply than electricity in SA.
Spot on, Arthur, as a management consutlant and trainer I’ve learnt that too often companies try solve problems by throwing money, when what they need is to think and carry things through. Those who are worried about the situation here see that the Governemtn has way too much tax money, so DG’s are tempted away from thinking – which they would if the resoureces seemed less – towards splurging instead. The remedy to this intellectual laziness lies in reducing the tax haul – which is sadly achieved when the economy goes ackwards.
Hi Arthur
The number of trains painted if weekends were included would be 3 trains, I’m sure that would be a daunting task for metrorail, seeing that their staff does not even know how to check train tickets properly or should you asked about the time of arrival of each train they simply give you a blank stare and respond “I don’t know”.
I ride on the train every day as an act of patriotism and faith in our country (you have to have some faith if you get on a train in Cape Town). We have to start using public transport.
A while ago I was attacked with knives and robbed of some cash and a cellphone by five men near Ysterplaat station. It was a f*cking scary experience. They all had hazy eyes (boose and tik, I guess) and looked very serious – I could see that they would kill if pushed a little. They were not children taking a chance. If I had a gun I would’ve killed one or two of them, I was that angry. That’s why I don’t want a gun.
Since then I’ve learnt always to sit in the carriage at the front, and not in the middle. I carry a dummy cellphone with me – an old one – so that they can grab that, and I hide my other phone and valuable cards on my body. I also carry pepper spray now, but I’m not sure if it will help me much. I also try to avoid late trains, since Metrorail supply NO security after 17:00.
When I informed MetroRail of this attack, they acted very indifferently, sort off: “It happens”. I also spoke to the drivers on this line an they just laugh – it happens every day, they say, and always at Ysterplaat.
My question is: How the hell can you not stop it if it is that simple and predictable?
Sometimes there are a lot of security guards on the trains. Sometimes nothing. A while ago, about four armed guards in uniform came into my carriage with a beaten up and handcuffed prisoner. There were about five other people in the carriage. They were joking with each other, and the prisoner, falling about and acting with no dignity towards their uniforms. After a while they undid the handcuffs and this guy, who looked pretty dangerous, was sitting about three meters away from me and other civilians. After my attack, this made me feel very uncomfortable. I felt that I was not being treated with any respect whatsoever, by MetroRail.
I also find the people at the turnstiles at Cape Town station, Metro-officials in uniform, to be absolutely unhelpful and unskilled. They normally sit around, or hang in the cubicles with no pride and dignity, talking loudly and blocking up the walkways. An official should be official, and act with pride.
One last thing – these same security guards on the trains, sometimes check tickets with a very rude attitude. You expect your tickets to be checked by a ticket conductor, and sometimes it is, but these security people are actually quite scary. Why are people not trained to treat clients with friendliness? It should be so easy.
I lived in Fort Lauderdale, USA for a few months in 2006. I used to ride the train down to Miami on a regular basis and not once did I feel scared, uneasy or threatened. There was a very clear transport police presence who were polite yet firm, the cars were clean and it was a pleasure to take the train instead of driving or taking a taxi. I would be happy to take a train from Joburg (where I live) to Pretoria (where I work) every day if our railway system was organised like it is in Florida.
To Ali
You have expressed the need so eloquently. Pride can make the most mundane jobs (and most jobs are) bearable if not enjoyable.