Morning Rush Hour Descends into Chaos After Line 10 Shuts Down
Beijing's morning rush hour devolved into a chaotic mess after subway service was abruptly halted on the Line 10 subway line for over an hour.
On its official Weibo microblogging account, the Beijing Metro said malfunctioning safety barrier doors at Jiaomen East Station had caused the disruption to subway service at 8.38am today.
By affecting incoming subway traffic in both directions. the malfunction effectively shut down subway service to the rest of Line 10. China Daily reported service disruption at the northeast corner of Line 10, describing commuters lining up in queues of 30 at Shaoyaoju Station at 9.35am.
The Line 10 malfunction was so severe that it affected service on other subway lines. The Beijing Metro said it began to implement pedestrian flow controls at Line 10 interchange stations like Hujialou Station, Guomao Station, and Jiaomen West Station (shown below).
Regular subway service was finally reinstated at 10.06am.
A number of Beijing commuters voiced their displeasure at the loss of subway service, causing many of them to be late for work.
A Weibo user named "Chuchu Claudia" said her regular morning commute of 40 minutes stretched out to over two hours because of today's lack of subway service. "Instead of just taking Line 8 and Line 10, today I had to go from Line 8 to Line 2, then Line 4, then Line 10," she said. "I took a trip around the entire subway system."
Another Weibo user named "Guo Mengzhong" said it seemed like there is a problem on the Beijing Metro every day, angrily complaining that it took him an hour to travel just five subway stations.
The loss of public transportation in a city as large as Beijing was seen as nothing short of catastrophic by some people. A Weibo user named "Smiling Natalie Schoolmate" called the lack of subway service a "joke."
"(Without) the Beijing subway system, its a disaster on the same level as the end of the world!" she said.
The Beijing Metro Line 10 is sometimes prone to subway service delays. In October 2015, a signal failure at Jiaomen West Station halted service on the southwest end of Line 10 for the better part of an hour during the morning commute.
The service disruption comes as Beijing continues to expand its services and operations as it continues to prepare for a future amalgamation with nearby Tianjin and parts of Hebei.
After having experimented with late-night service, this year has seen the Beijing Metro introduce safety stewards, cellphone gate entry payment, a crackdown on subway perverts as well as its biggest ever subway construction expansion that includes a subway station in Sanlitun as well as the city's first-ever maglev line.
Images: Weibo.com
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