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Mar. 28th, 2005 02:05 pmI feel sorry for people working today, including specifically, the poor people of the West Australian. I may be having a letter to the editor published tomorrow. Heh. Saturday's paper had an article about how easy it was to evade fares on Perth's trains.
Firstly, the article was incredibly poorly written.. I mean, it's a 1/4 page article on how the reporter spent 4 hours on a train and got his ticket checked once (sorry if he's a friend nikki, but the article was vapid and not at all in depth). He mentioned a new ticketing system Perth is getting.. but failed to mention why or what about it.. the entire article manages to omit mention of the fare gates that will be installed.. I mean, sheesh.. that's THE POINT OF IT! Anyway, I wrote a letter in about this and how actual fare enforcement cuts down on crime.
For those of you not from Perth, we have a light-rail system. Which you can walk onto it from the street without having to go through any barriers. There are occasional ticket checks at peak times, but it basically works on the honour system. Now, those of you reading this presumably know me enough to know I've travelled.. a lot. I love cities. I've been on light-rail systems in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Washington, Boston and London.. of those, all require presentation of tickets to board. And guess what? I've felt safer on almost all of them than I have on the Perth train system. Except for the incident in Brixton where the train was boarded by 30 police officers shouting directions for everyone to remain in their seats and not move.. but even then, a train full of cops is generally pretty safe ;p
Firstly, the article was incredibly poorly written.. I mean, it's a 1/4 page article on how the reporter spent 4 hours on a train and got his ticket checked once (sorry if he's a friend nikki, but the article was vapid and not at all in depth). He mentioned a new ticketing system Perth is getting.. but failed to mention why or what about it.. the entire article manages to omit mention of the fare gates that will be installed.. I mean, sheesh.. that's THE POINT OF IT! Anyway, I wrote a letter in about this and how actual fare enforcement cuts down on crime.
For those of you not from Perth, we have a light-rail system. Which you can walk onto it from the street without having to go through any barriers. There are occasional ticket checks at peak times, but it basically works on the honour system. Now, those of you reading this presumably know me enough to know I've travelled.. a lot. I love cities. I've been on light-rail systems in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Washington, Boston and London.. of those, all require presentation of tickets to board. And guess what? I've felt safer on almost all of them than I have on the Perth train system. Except for the incident in Brixton where the train was boarded by 30 police officers shouting directions for everyone to remain in their seats and not move.. but even then, a train full of cops is generally pretty safe ;p
