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Commuters left waiting as Line 16 Metro extension struggles to cope
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LONG waits on platforms and overcrowded carriages marred the “official” opening yesterday of the Metro Line 16 extension.
“I’ll probably go back to taking the bus if the situation doesn’t improve tomorrow,” commuter Cai Zhen said after waiting at East Zhoupu Station for more than 20 minutes before being able to get on a train.
Cai said she planned to take the new service to Longyang Road and then change to Line 2, which would take her to work.
While the theory was sound, in reality Cai and dozens of others were forced to wait for far longer than planned as overloaded trains pulled into the station and pulled out again after picking up just a handful of commuters.
Cai said she was eventually able to squeeze into a carriage of the third train to arrive.
Two new Line 16 stations opened on Sunday, extending its northern terminus from Luoshan Road to Longyang Road, the latter being an interchange with lines 2 and 7.
The first real test of the service, however, came yesterday morning with the arrival of the rush-hour crowd.
According to Metro operator Shanghai Shentong Group, Line 16 carried 26,000 people between 6am and 9am yesterday, or about 4,000 more than on a regular Monday.
The steepest rises were seen at East Zhoupu and Heshahangcheng — the two immediately south of the new extension — the company said.
At East Zhoupu, the number of people using the station between 6am and 9am rose by 55 percent to 3,100, while at Heshahangcheng the figure increased by more than 36 percent to about 3,000.
Officials at both stations said they sought to control the flow of people onto platforms by closing several turnstiles. But the commuters kept coming.
Zhu Jian, who lives close to Line 16’s East Hangtou Station, told Shanghai Daily that he also planned to use the new extension to get to work.
All went well during a “test run” on Sunday, he said, but yesterday was altogether different.
“I worked out that taking the extension could save me 20 minutes, but I couldn’t get on the first train because it was just too crowded.”
“I had to let that train go through and managed to get on the second, but it felt like a long wait,” he said.
Shao Weizhong, vice president of Shentong Group, said the company was aware of the overcrowding and will monitor the situation over the next few days before deciding on the best course of action.
Trains running on Line 16 comprise three carriages and have capacity for about 900 people. The waiting time between them is about eight minutes.
The operator did not say if it had any plans to lay on longer or more frequent trains.
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