Former Non-Constituency Member of Parliament Gerald Giam voiced his concerns on his Facebook account on the Downtown Line train disruption yesterday morning (4 October).
Mr Gerald said that he was taking his son to kindergarten at about 8.15 am. But since the DTL was disrupted, they had to take bus bridging services.
He said that by the time they reached the next MRT station, the service had been restored. However, they still had to wait for 3 trains to pass by as they were filled to overflowing with passengers from the earlier stops, and they reached school about half an hour late.
During the trip, Mr Gerald said he saw the gap left by the dislodged platform door. He said, “It’s worrying that something like this can happen. I hope SBS Transit will carry out a thorough investigation and make public its findings so as to ease commuters’ concerns about safety.”
From news reports, the door got unhinged and the glass shattered at about 6.25am. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
He said that the bus bridging service was in place by the time they got to the bus stop almost two hours after the disruption started. However, the marshals deployed by SBS Transit seemed to give conflicting instructions.
“Were commuters supposed to take the bus to Sixth Ave or Tan Kah Kee station? From which station was the train operating?” asked Mr Giam in his post and pointed that the bus driver wasn’t sure either.
He noted that commuters helped answer each others’ questions based on the different pieces of information they had gathered and he along with other commuters got off at Sixth Ave.
“This is an area that SBS Transit could look at improving when future disruptions happen,” he stated.
